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20 month old sleeps well at Dad's house but not Mom's

post #1 of 2
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My ex and I have done part-time parenting since my youngest (now 20 months) was 7 months.  He was sleeping through the night (around 5 hours at a time) on and off up until about 5 months ago.  Now, he barely sleeps when he's at my place but when he's at his Dad's place, he sleeps around 10 hours every night.  We have a solid bedtime routine which he's taken to pretty well but he's still up several times a night.  He's super clingy with me but according to his Dad, he not clingy at all when he's with him.  I've tried changing things that deal with physical comfort and nothing has worked.  I've even tried recreating his sleeping arrangement at his Dad's and all that has done is disrupt my older son's sleep.  Any part-time parents out there have a similar situation and have any tips?

post #2 of 2

We had a 50/50 situation briefly a couple times and my experience was that we didn't actually have huge differences in the kids behaviors between our homes, even though xh always said we did. Sometimes he just wouldn't notice really obvious things...he didn't know the baby was crying non-stop if you didn't hold him because he would just turn the volume on the tv/video games/whatever up so loud that he couldn't hear him in the back room with the door closed. So, he really thought ds was perfectly happy with him. He was also convinced that screaming and crying in fear was how both kids laughed, pretty much forever. He would do terrifying things, insist they thought it was hillarious, then claim I was "twisting" things when the kids developed full fledged phobias from his "jokes". Eventually he wasn't just a cruel person that didn't know any better, though. Eventually we dealt with dd wetting the bed at his house, and during the day any time she spent time with him. He insisted that it wasn't happening, to the point he would tell her she hadn't wet the bed - that it was actually dry - and make her sleep in it...then air it out during the day and make her sleep in the dirty sheets again the next night. All the time, insisting that everything was always absolutely perfect with him and any trouble that happened was caused by me and only happened around me. 

 

 

So, now you know the background when I tell you that any time I hear about one parent claiming that significant issues only happen with the other parent...I assume that parent is lying. The issues may be different at each house, but if something's going on with the kid...there will be signs in any situation. When dd wet the bed w xh, she was terrified to sleep alone and had lots of trouble sleeping in general with me. Not bed wetting, but obviously something was up! Most x's aren't as dangerous as mine...but unfortunately, few are any more honest, either. =/

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