OH DEAR!

[indianasmith]

You'd think you would figure out what causes that by now . . . .

Congratulations.  Children are the one piece of ourselves we leave behind when we shuffle off this mortal coil, and now you have a sizable legacy!

[Flick James]

congrats Flick, I recently asked a couple who had 3 children roughly aged like yours how they did it (with 2 at least you can each tackle one but at 3 now the kids outnumber the adults). They said the trick was to move to a "zone defense" tactic. If this was basketball I would understand what they meant by this, but as for kids your on your own for interpretation I'm just passing on their advice.

Good luck, who knows maybe you'll get lucky and your latest addition will be a good sleeper. 

That's funny. Not surprising that a Hoosier would tie basketball into childcare tactics. 

Actually, most parents of 3 or more that I have talked to say that the transition from 1 to 2 kids is a far bigger deal than going from 2 to 3. I keep thinking it's going to be too overwhelming, but common wisdom is telling me that we've already hit the hurdle of multiple childcare. It does little to beguile me from my current terror, however.

[WildHoosier09]

Yup, very Indiana. Kids and basketball is about all we got. It's not like we can climb any nearby mountains or swim in the ocean. 

I was scared to death when our second child came around that life would become hell as our first didn't sleep more than 5-10min every 3-4 hours or so for pretty much the first year. My wife and I ended up splitting the night into shifts (I still subconciously consider 2AM to be when my shift ends and I can go to sleep) outside of looking alike our daughter behaves nothing at all like her brother and actually sleep the purported infant average of 18-20hrs/day. Makes things so much easier 

[Criswell]

Congrats, and good luck at the same time.

[Flick James]

Yup, very Indiana. Kids and basketball is about all we got. It's not like we can climb any nearby mountains or swim in the ocean. 

I was scared to death when our second child came around that life would become hell as our first didn't sleep more than 5-10min every 3-4 hours or so for pretty much the first year. My wife and I ended up splitting the night into shifts (I still subconciously consider 2AM to be when my shift ends and I can go to sleep) outside of looking alike our daughter behaves nothing at all like her brother and actually sleep the purported infant average of 18-20hrs/day. Makes things so much easier 

Thats funny. We do the shift thing to

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

I was scared to death when our second child came around that life would become hell as our first didn't sleep more than 5-10min every 3-4 hours or so for pretty much the first year. My wife and I ended up splitting the night into shifts (I still subconciously consider 2AM to be when my shift ends and I can go to sleep) outside of looking alike our daughter behaves nothing at all like her brother and actually sleep the purported infant average of 18-20hrs/day. Makes things so much easier 

This was our life too, I can function at 100% up to 2 Am then I just crash hard...

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

Oh yeah Flick, your wife caled... Its triplets...
 

-Ed

[Trevor]

Congrats to  Mr and Mrs James 

We look forward to the birth of little Trevor..ermmm, I mean, little James. 

[Flick James]

I honestly don't know how I'm going to handle this.

My wife is feeling like absolute s**t on toast for this pregnancy. What's more, my children have suddenly become nocturnal. They don't sleep at night anymore. My oldest son has always been a light sleeper, and I suspect he occasionally has night terrors. To compound the issue, he just doesn't go to sleep. He refuses. There is no discipline or approach that seems to work. He sometimes will not go to sleep until 11 at night, and then, of course, he won't get up in the morning and the cycle just continues. If I try to get him up early to try and adjust his internal clock, he will invariably fall asleep in the afternoon for a nap and then we're back to him being up until midnight.

Then there's my youngest. He is suddenly waking up at night a lot where he used to be a really good sleeper. He will scream at the top of his lungs and won't go back down. The only thing that will work is a drive in the car in the wee hours of the morning. If I don't, then he will wake Miles up and then we are in a world of s**t.

It is exhausting, and my wife feeling as lousy as she does means that I am taking care of more duties than I did in past pregnancies, and I am just so unbelievably tired.

I don't know what  to do to get these boys back on track at night and I feel like I'm going to lose my mind. I'm tired and grumpy most of the time lately.

All I can do really is vent, so that's what I'm doing. If any parents out there have been through something similar and can offer advice I would welcome it.

[Andrew]

Congratulation, and best of luck!  For us, what has worked with having three children is "divide and conquer."  If we are having problems with behavior then removing one child from the mix changes the social dynamic.  Jenna is getting old enough so that she will play at a friend's house, and she does baton and dance.  Andy has soccer and cub scouts.  If nothing extracurricular is going on, then we split them up between Katie and me doing whatever. 

You have a rough time with the little ones not wanting to sleep.  When our kids are tired is when they are at their most difficult.  Depending on details, for us either physical activity (running around, even just me and them doing something) before dinner or quiet time after dinner (reading to them, etc.) has helped.  Some kids do have crazy sleep rhythms.  My friends daughter would always wake up around 4:30 -5:00 am.  Nothing would help, and it drove them batty.  She's gotten better about sleeping until a reasonable time as she has gotten older.

[alandhopewell]

Congrats! And I needn't tell you that the joys will help overcome the difficulties.

     Me and the Missus are praying for you and yours.

[Flick James]

Part of it is our fault. We had such a strong routine going at night. I would usually lay in bed with Miles and we would  read books for about 20-30 minutes, and then we would shut off the lights and, while some nights were difficult, most nights he would be out within 20 minutes or so and I would leave the room.

Then a big mistake happened, although I would never have thought it was such an error at the time. We have a guest room with a TV and a DVD player in it for guests. One day I broke out the original Star Wars trilogy to see if he would like it. He loved it. He wanted to watch them all the time. My wife could only handle so much of Star Wars, and I didn't mind, so Miles and I would often have bonding time by going in the guest room and popping in a Star Wars movie. Pretty soon the guest room became his new hangout, and a few times we let him watch by himself at night, he ended up falling asleep watching tv, and that's where the problems started. It's almost  impossible now to get him to settle down and just read some books and go to sleep without something electronic going on, and then he's stimulated and it takes a long time.

I know that what we really have to do here is unplug the tv's at night and get into a different night routine. It's hard though, because with as late as their clocks are now, there are nights when we would really like to watch something and not wait until 11 at night to do it.

Oh well, we just gotta do it.

[bob]

congrats and good luck