Listen to me.

Why do children deicide to nap at silly times. Jared napped at 4.45pm this afternoon. Annoying as his bedtime is at 7pm and well a late nap means he is not very sleepy at 7pm! He wouldn't wake up after about 20 minutes, I had to pick him up and then he crashed out on me, then I woke him again and he crawled under his blanket and was sound asleep again within minutes. Eventually we woke him up, but he really didn't want to be awake It was only when we bribed him by saying he could have crisps that he came out from under the blanket and sat at his little table.

The bribery situation happens from time to time when we want Jared to do something. Ok its not the best way to deal with things, but I really needed Jared to stop laying on the sofa and falling back to sleepy land.

I was thinking about the ways we diffuse tantrums and other acts of naughtiness and wonder what other mummies do? Sometimes we tell his he will have to go to his room if he doesn't do something or to stop doing something naughty. Other tantrums get the count to 5 treatment. However I'm not sure if with the "count to 5" either he or us know what's going to happen when we get to 5! We have a kind of time-out treatment for extreme naughtiness, which is just placing him on the floor of his room (we live in a flat, so he is only next door to the kitchen/lounge) and leaving him for a few minutes and making sure he says sorry and understands why he was put there. Toddlers don't listen very well. I'm hoping this improves in the next year.

Its very hard to keep your calm with a terrible two year old. He will probably be just as terrible at 3 years old (next Tuesday he is 3!)

So how do you deal with tantrums and naughtiness and general children not listening?