Wild Toddler EARLY in the Morning-Did I Handle This OK?

[SparklingGemini]

First off, I'm not sure if this should be in GD or The Family Bed, so mods please feel free to move it.

Now, my plight! (Not really, I'm just prone to melodrama! )

This morning, very, very, very early, DD decided that it was time to get up and play and jump all over me and talk up a storm. Not only that but she was insistent on being rough with my breasts, grabbing and pinching, and request "MILK NOW!" when she had just been nursed 15 minutes before.

Well after over an hour of this and trying to gently soothe her back to sleep with back rubs and songs and then finally just ignoring her, I couldn't handle it and I tell her "I need you to be quiet and calm. I am very, very tired and want to go back to sleep. If you cannot be quiet and calm, I'm going to go to sleep in the guest room and you can stay here and play."

She did settle down after that. And went to sleep about 20 minutes later.

But the thing is, it felt like a threat and being manipulative.

I wasn't trying to be manipulative. I just wanted some sleep and she wanted to play and that was the best I could do at 3am.

So, let me have it...all your wisdom and insight please!

[woodsymommyof3]

I think you handled it fine.

My 7 yr old co-sleeps with us, but in his own bed next to ours. While it is a chore getting him up for school, every non-school day he is up at 6:47 in the morning. It's impressive that it is always 6:47 on the dot. But, it makes DH and I nuts because 6:47 on a weekend is not playtime. : We've had to tell him that he can either lay quietly while he snuggles with us and take a nap or he has to go play someplace else. He'll sometimes whine, but he goes. And then comes back to wake us an hour or so later. :

[Carlyle]

I don't think that's a threat. That's telling her your feelings, and what you plan to do to take care of yourself if she kept being wild. I think that models healthy behavior for your lo!

[jojoboy]

I do something similar for my toddler (3 1/2). I have a baby in the family bed, though, and my toddler routinely gets up before me or baby. I tell him that the bedroom is a quiet, sleeping room. If he is all done sleeping then he can go into the rest of the house and play/read books/find a snack, etc.

I think sometimes GD is about your intentions and how you say things. I mean, my example above could be played out in a punitive way by me saying, "If you're not going to be quiet, get out!" But that's not how I say it to my kid, and that's not how he hears it.

I sometimes have a hard time being gentle in the morning (not a morning person), but since my kid routinely wakes before me, I also remind him of the quiet/sleeping room before he goes to sleep as well.