New here - struggling with newborn and step kids
Hi all
I have begun to absolutely dread my two step kids coming over. My partner and I have a small baby aged 15 weeks. We live in a small 1 bedroom apartment right now and due to the current situation are having his two boys aged 8 and 13 on Monday and Tuesdays every week. Baby is going through a mental leap so is very fussy, needy and needs rest and tranquility. Impossible with the two boys who are loud and constantly misbehave all day. From when they arrive they wake him up and he doesn't get a nap all day when they are here. Like today on Fridays I begin to feel sick and dread the fact I know Monday is almost here. They need to be told what to do all day and constantly be spoken to for misbehaving. Theyre addicted to sugar so continuously go into the kitchen to find any type of snack all day long, they are lazy and failing class, all they do at their own house is sit on phones or watch tv/play video games. They aren't allowed to do this at our house. Our place is far too small for 5 people in it and I'm so fed up it is just becoming too much. Please help.
Use you bedroom for regular
Use you bedroom for regular respite for yourself and your baby (turn it into a personal living room/bedroom) but also use the rest of the house.
discuss plans to move when out of lockdown.
discuss with partner about him occupying his kids with stuff whilst at yours
negotiate a week or two ‘breather’ from step kids with BM if she is amicable. If they have bedrooms at BMs house etc, and stuff to amuse them ????
It must be difficult.
Baby’s learn to sleep through noise, but I’m guessing the lack of space is very stressful (hide in bedroom with baby and go to for a nap. Wedge door with small chest of drawers or similar if small people are just bursting in and talk to partner about teaching manners!)
Hide in your room.
Hide in your room.
What's wrong with your
What's wrong with your husband? Why in the world would he think having a family of 5 living in a one bedroom apartment was a good idea??
I don't know how you expect to have piece and quiet under those living conditions. They are going to talk, play and goof around. That's what kids do.
Your expectations for the tight quarters you live in seem a bit unrealistic.
And judging her is helping
And judging her is helping how? Also, my skids are younger than these boys & not once has their behaviour woken my baby, because they aren’t allowed to act like little sh*ts, especially when the baby’s asleep.
Yikes
I have no help to give - just good luck!
My husband was told to address skid issues immediately
from waking up our daughter. Ss would open and slam his bedroom and front door till house was vibrating and i had to deal with a cranky baby.
some idiots told me my daughter had no business napping in living area and should be in a bedroom, we lived in a 2 storey home and ss confines himself to his bedroom as addicted to sleeping and computer games.
He actually told his dad that our daughter cried all the friggin time (eyeroll here), my husband called bs on that and said be considerate of others. Ss proceeded to open his bedroom door and close it super quietly just to over-exaggerate things...
any behavioural or attitude issues, I message hubby to deal with immediately. I don’t care if hubby is at work but he needs to deal with it appropriately because i’m tired of skid bs
Hi OP,
Hi OP,
Don't let the others get you down about the living spaces. If we all had our shit together we wouldn't be hanging out on a step parenting forum! I have 2 kids under 15m so I know what you're referring to regarding leaps, napping, etc
I also have an older SD that is rambunctious and under foot a lot. We don't live in an apartment so that's a different challenge. My suggestion is that dad sits them down and goes over some new house rules. Is baby on a somewhat consistent nap schedule? It could be something like: quiet hours are from 9-11am then 1-3pm since those are peak nap times. While baby is up, sit out with the boys and have them interact and "play", make faces, talk to your baby, and help that bond form. When it's naptime, kindly (or not so kindly) remind them to STFU for the next 2 hours... go into your room, invest in a white noise machine if you haven't already and get baby down for a nap.
In essence you're nap training everyone here, but it needs to be reinforced consistently from dad, and then you.. but dad REALLY needs to step up here and put the older kids on notice. Because as you know, an overtired baby only sleeps worse at night and guess who's up at night tending to an overtired kiddo? My guess is, YOU!
Hang in there, you're right in the middle of a really challenging time but the leaps do ease up and what they learn through them gets really fun down the road!
That's a crappy situation all
That's a crappy situation all the way around.
What are you both doing improve the situation?