So while I'm in the mood for confessing to parenting fails, take a look at this photo of The Boy's beautiful bedroom and tell me the small issue…
It's a small fail and you might not even register it as one. First look at all the things that are in the picture, work your way around the photo…
- a soothing colour scheme with a rather lovely tree (even if I do say so myself) stretching over his bed
- a monitor to hear his lordship if he wakes in the night
- a fun bedset
- cuddly toys
- a bedguard to stop my gorgeous boy from falling out and hurting himself
- Oliver Monkey
- a soothing mobile
Which one shouldn't really be there? Which one is the item I feel is a parenting fail?
Some might argue it's the bedguard as apparently children need to learn how to not fall out of bed. Personally I'd rather The Boy do this without breaking his arm or nose, or by ending up with a black eye. Therefore the bedguard stays.
Surely the cuddly toys and Oliver Monkey aren't a problem? Every child has cuddly toys on their bed, and while they do tend to take up the bottom third of his bed, he is actually not occupying that space allowing Ludo, Peppa and friends to remain in situ.
I'm pretty sure no-one's going to try and argue with me about the monitor.
You'd be correct if you identified the soothing mobile as the problem. Next month, The Boy will be four and we are still using his cot mobile at night to help him get off to sleep.
I know.
We bought it before he was born and have used it every night since he arrived home. It plays three tunes although I have no recollection of what the first two are, as we have always found the third to be the magic melody; 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'. For some reason it has always had the most soothing effect on him, and I still know all the verses to it from when I used to sing along with it when he was a baby. The mobile comes on holiday with us and for weekends away, to London, Cornwall, Butlin's, you name it and it's been there!
Occasionally we attempt a story CD or a gentle musical collection to try and coax him into the land of nod. 'Guess How Much I Love You' is his favourite, but the problem there is that he lies awake listening to it and then wants to start joining in with the actions. We humour him with it occasionally, hoping that he'll drift off quickly but it never seems to work, and we end up resorting to 'Twinkle'.
The main issue with using 'Twinkle' (aside from the fact that it is intended for babies) is that it runs off batteries, and I can't even begin to tell you how many we've bought over the past (nearly) four years. We've come to the conclusion that the cheap yellow ones from the Scandinavian furniture store are pretty pointless as they last about three days, and this is why we ended up buying some rechargeable batteries last year. They worked very effectively until my mum replaced them, didn't realise they were of the rechargeable variety and threw two of them in the bin.
And so we find ourselves facing the issue of what to do with 'Twinkle'. Do we try and phase her out? He surely can't still listen to her when he's 17?! Aside from anything else, the screws holding the battery compartment shut have no thread left on them and are a nightmare to unscrew.
Tell me; do you use music at bedtime? Does it help?
Please tell me you have a parenting fail?
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Oh god, I am one massive parent fail then. I'd leave Twinkle, he'll get shut when he's ready and who actually sees it out of his bedroom anyway. Middler is 11 and has a massive gorilla that is bigger than him sharing his single bed.
I looked round the picture and ticked off my fails. No bedguard, ever. Low bed I had a quilt on the floor, and high bed at 3, pillows at the side for a few weeks, mind you the 11 year old still falls out of bed but thankfully no broken bones or anything yet (touch wood).
Decorative walls – mine are filled with toy gouges, holes and poked bits as well as the newest fad for drawing pictures of themselves and pinning them everywhere 🙁
Fun bedset – um, sort of, but no, fail again, twas cheapeast on offer at the time.
Cuddly Toy – yay, I can tick this off the list, yet the first couple of nights the kids arrived, I was so tired, I forgot to give them a cuddly toy to sleep with. Thankfully they slept.
Soothing Mobile – oh gawd, I am feeling so horrible as a parent – never had one, never even thought about it.
Monitor? Had one, but it broke when littlest was 15 months. Then it involved frequent checks at the bottom of the stairs, but he was a heavy snorer and could be heard from miles off.
Slinks back into a corner.
To be fair, the bedset was the cheapest one in Argos for boys! Thanks for your comment.
I don't think it's a parenting fail. You are doing something that helps him to fall asleep. He's still young and will very likely grow out of it himself. My 7 year old absolutely denies any previous 'babyish' behaviour as he thinks he's too cool to have ever done any of that. Unless it's really bothering you I wouldn't worry about it.
Though talking of parenting fails – my 2 year old refused lunch today so I gave him ice-cream instead. We all need a little treat sometimes 😉
I think if it was a CD then I'd not worry, it's just because it's a cot mobile that I worry. But I think it's me just worrying what others think, like you said it helps him sleep and why would I not use it?
Honestly I noticed it just because not many keep using it but I really don't see why it should be a parenting fail. It is something familiar and comforting to him. I hate the idea of things being age appropriate though so things like this don't bother me. Lots of children have specific comforters and I can't think of a good argument why this should not be one but them I am VERY far from being the perfect mother and won't start listing all my parenting fails just yet!
This is my thought as well, he is only three after all and I am not in a rush for him to grow up. Thanks for your comment.
We had a projector that until a couple of months ago my 5 year old couldn't possibly sleep without. Then one night we ran out of charged batteries – and she was just fine. It was a surprise, but I'm happy to say its now in the charity shop
I'm really worried about the day when we can't get the batteries out!
my son had the wind up bit from his mobile till he was at least nearly in school. My others have all had musical things to take to bed. My 8 year old still has hers by the side of her bed, dont think she winds it up. I always thought it was sort of sweet. 🙂