Oh boy. What a week and change it's been in our house. So, two weekends ago SD10 had Covid and BM refused to take time off work to keep SD at her house to quarantine. My SO had to take her to his parents' house (they are away on a trip) to quarantine and try not to expose himself and by extension me. It ended up working out and SD is recovered now and neither of us ended up with Covid. Thank goodness. SD had a lot of time at BM's last week so we didn't see her much but SO and I had a couple discussions about SD and her behavior lately.

I've posted before about my SD and her trouble sleeping. It's been going on for almost three months now and SO and I are about done. SD will go to bed and then 30-45 minutes later she's standing in front of us crying saying she can't sleep unless we give her some melatonin. Now, SO and I don't have a problem with SD taking melatonin occasionally but it shouldn't be something she's relying on every night like this. Her pediatrician agrees and says she can take it but only on an as needed basis. The melatonin dependence isn't the only thing affecting her sleep, though. She's stating she is having nightmares, or bad dreams, and will wake us up in the middle of the night to be tucked back in. Most of the time she's up to use the bathroom. I've caught her twice now saying she's had a nightmare but I've heard her go to the bathroom, go back to her room, and then come to ours to get SO up to tuck her back in. At 10 this is way too much dependence on her dad in my opinion. I also think it's her way of getting some extra attention from SO and it makes her feel special. 

SO and I (and BM) decided it's time for SD to talk to someone about her sleeping issues. My SO is going to call the school this week and set up a time for her to talk to the school counselor. We are clearly out of our depth here and don't really know what more we can do. We've tried to be nice and understanding. We've tried being frustrated and annoyed with her. The only thing my SO hasn't done is what I think he needs to do: He needs to tell her to go back to bed and not tuck her in. He needs to stop coddling her. I told him this and he agreed. He even admitted to coddling her and said he can see how that has made things worse. So, he's working on that with a lot of encouragement from me.

We sat SD down and told her that it's time we start addressing the sleeping issue and that she'll be talking to a counselor about her problems. When SO asked her (I don't know why he even did this) if she thought it was a good plan she said, "No." I think SO was surprised and asked her why and she said, "Because I don't want to talk about my personal stuff with some counselor." Then we had to reassure her the counselor won't share her secrets with us, but they are there to help her in ways we simply can't. Then she got upset and started crying about it. Always the water works, this one.

If I had to take a guess I think SD has sleep anxiety. She gets herself all worked up before bed, and then while she's trying to fall asleep. She lays there and thinks about all the scary things imaginable and it's no wonder she can't sleep. Her aunt, my SO's sister, calls SD a self fulfilling prophecy and man is she right. I also guess this because I went through something similar at her age. I mentioned it to SD and she asked how I got over it. I told her it took some work but eventually I realized there was nothing to be afraid of... movies and monsters aren't real. I think the thing that upsets SD so much is knowing she has to work through this and we aren't going to throw melatonin at the problem and continue to tell her what good girl she is. Her parents are not really seeing her in the light they used to and it's kind of refreshing for me.

SD came back to our house yesterday and was already in trouble less than an hour after arriving. SO told her to take a shower and after her shower she came out and said her phone was being funny. SO and I looked at it and the warning on the screen was about water in the charging port. SO asked her why her phone would be wet and SD said, "Well, I took it in the shower with me like I always do," and I thought SO was gonna lose his shit. He asked her why she had it in the shower. She said because she was watching videos on it. He said she doesn't need to be doing that in the shower and that was absolutely ridiculous. Again, tears started. I took the phone and put it in front of a fan, on low, on a towel to let it air dry. SO started to tell her he wasn't mad at her and I cut him off and said, "But it's your responsibility to take care of this phone and you have not been." SO agreed. The phone is actually on BM's plan so it only matters a little to us if she ruins the phone, but otherwise we know we aren't responsible for it (and so does BM). SO told BM and they agreed SD is grounded from her phone for a while. SO pulled me aside and said he thinks she's addicted to her phone and I said, "Yep and I've tried to tell you a bunch of times."

SD is on her phone from the second she wakes up until about 30 minutes before bedtime. Freaking yikes. When she gets ready for school in the morning, she's glued to her phone the entire time watching youtube videos or whatever. Eating breakfast, watching her phone. Brushing her hair, watching her phone. Getting dressed, watching her phone. I've seen the problem, mentioned it to SO who tries to justify it by saying, "She takes breaks" and we both know she doesn't really take any breaks. I told SO he needs to start paying more attention to what she's doing because clearly he hasn't been. He agreed and said he'd work on it.

I'm glad the Disney parenting is coming to an end and we're starting to deal with the problems SD has been having/causing. SO and I moved in together in June (we've been together 3 yrs) and before we even moved in together I told him the Disney/guilt parenting needed to come to an end for our relationship to work. I was tired of seeing it when we were spending weekends together with SD where she got to call all the shots. Even on my birthday last year she tried to tell us what we were doing that day even though SO clearly said, "Daisy, it's your day, what would you like to do?" SD chimed in, "we should go to the park and the store for crafts and maybe the library," before I could even answer. I was furious. Her calling all the shots has pretty much stopped now. SO is putting his foot down more with her and making her compromise more on what she wants to do vs what we want to do. I think SD has some feelings about me living there and the changes it caused with SO and his parenting. Now that I'm there I see the things SO wasn't seeing/didn't see before and bring them to his attention so SD doesn't really get away with the crap she used to. Maybe she'll hate me at some point in the near future, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Ok. I'm done now. Thank you for letting me vent/share what's going on in my step parent life.