Bedtime phone calls?
Tonight I thought I'd be nice and let all the kids stay up an extra 1/2hr after bedtime.... the youngest step kid at the time it was time to go to be wanted to phone his mom so trying to be nice I let him.... bring on the tears of a 4yr old! Every time he see her when with us he starts acting out and now when he phone her he gets all upset and starts crying. He never use to even want to call her and hated when we had to return him to her. Is it appropriate for us to say no to him phoning her on the basis that he gets upset every time now? Am I doing something wrong as a step parent?
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We went through this with SD,
We went through this with SD, when she was 4, whenever it was BED time, she'd want to ring BM, there were tears if dad said no, there were tears if she did call and talk to mommy "I miss you waaahhhhh"
Then SO set a rule, 6pm was call time, SD would get the offer and reminded that THIS was her chance to call, not later because that was BED TIME. Didn't last long, both BM and SD got bored since it no longer got either of them what they wanted; BM = SD crying at dads equals dad is a shit parent. SD = extra time up and some coddling.
thank you. I was considering
thank you. I was considering setting a time he could phone her that was well in advance of bedtime to avoid him at least going to bed upset.
Same as above. SS3 used to do
Same as above. SS3 used to do this when BM would call (every night) at bedtime to tell "her baby" goodnight. Well I got sick of dealing with him crying for no reason after talking to her so I told DH to deal with it. His solution was to email BM and tell her that if she wants to talk to SS she would have to call at 5 on Wednesday. Any other times or days would be ignored because she upsets him when she calls. And yes he actually told her that she upsets him. Her response was something like "because he needs to talk to me, that's why he's upset". Whatever. It worked!! Now that she has to call so early he still gets playtime before bed. Now he talks to her for maybe two or three minutes then is ready to get back to playing. BM tried making DH make me answer/call her at bedtime so she could talk to SS but I told him to tell her that she's blocked from my phone and I have no intentions on EVER unblocking her. So 5 or nothing.
You should set a specific day and an earlier time and see if that works for yall too
We do have bed time calls,
We do have bed time calls, one set day a week. I think that once near the beginning SD got upset. My husband spoke to BM and told her that it wasn't healthy or good for SD to get so upset, and asked her to keep the calls more upbeat. Miraculously it worked.
Not sure what the BM you deal with is like, but perhaps the direct response is the way to go if she is not being deliberately manipulative, and even then she might change if she is called on her shit. I do though I like the other ideas too of a slightly earlier call, personally for us though it would be more disruptive of our evening.