My Step-Daughter will Go to Sleep for Everyone but Me
Submitted by Rangerdad
Me and my girlfriend are planning to move in together with her two kids from her previous marriage. I love those kids to death and they love me, they are always talking about me around other people, even their real dad. My so called step-daughter is a momma's girl, she can't stand to not have her mom out of her sight when they are in the same house.
When it comes to bedtime, thats when it gets bad. Her son is not a problem, but her daughter has to sleep with someone, whether it's her mom, grandmother or aunts; but not me. She tries to sleep right next to or on top of her mother. I tried to set her down next to me and have her go to sleep but she was not having it. When that didn't work I tried rocking her in my arms just like her mother does but she just keep crying. She cried her eyes our for a good 45 minutes until she made herself sick and threw up on me.
When they are all at my place and she won't go to sleep we put her on the bed with a night light and try to let her go to sleep, but because her mother is not there, she balls her eyes out until she eventually freaks out.
My girlfriend has been juggling a lot of things for a couple years and doesn't have the opportunity to keep the kids on a set schedule. Since their dad is falling out of the picture they have never had a stable father figure in their life. I am assuming all of this has something to do with the daughter because she has never had a man to become comfortable with.
I told my girlfriend that when she moves up here with the kids I don't want them on bottles with nipples anymore because they are too old to be having bottles, they need to sleep in their own beds and go to bed at a decent time. She has got them going to bed at a decent time, the bottle thing we are slowly working on. But the sleeping in their own bed is the biggest problem; the boy will go to sleep with a grain of salt but not the girl.
I need some advice on how to break her of this dependence on mother and get her to trust me and go to bed for me. My thought is if I spend some time just with her daughter without her mother around she will eventually get used to me. I'm sure the distance thing doesn't help right now either (I live 2 hours from them currently).
When it comes to bedtime, thats when it gets bad. Her son is not a problem, but her daughter has to sleep with someone, whether it's her mom, grandmother or aunts; but not me. She tries to sleep right next to or on top of her mother. I tried to set her down next to me and have her go to sleep but she was not having it. When that didn't work I tried rocking her in my arms just like her mother does but she just keep crying. She cried her eyes our for a good 45 minutes until she made herself sick and threw up on me.
When they are all at my place and she won't go to sleep we put her on the bed with a night light and try to let her go to sleep, but because her mother is not there, she balls her eyes out until she eventually freaks out.
My girlfriend has been juggling a lot of things for a couple years and doesn't have the opportunity to keep the kids on a set schedule. Since their dad is falling out of the picture they have never had a stable father figure in their life. I am assuming all of this has something to do with the daughter because she has never had a man to become comfortable with.
I told my girlfriend that when she moves up here with the kids I don't want them on bottles with nipples anymore because they are too old to be having bottles, they need to sleep in their own beds and go to bed at a decent time. She has got them going to bed at a decent time, the bottle thing we are slowly working on. But the sleeping in their own bed is the biggest problem; the boy will go to sleep with a grain of salt but not the girl.
I need some advice on how to break her of this dependence on mother and get her to trust me and go to bed for me. My thought is if I spend some time just with her daughter without her mother around she will eventually get used to me. I'm sure the distance thing doesn't help right now either (I live 2 hours from them currently).
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