Dragging it out?

Answer me this. If your child is overtired and emotional at bedtime, do you:

a) ignore the screaming and upset, pulling the clothes off a distraught toddler to get them into bed so they can sleep sooner, or

b) does your heart rule, slowing the process to navigate through the tears to find time in between bouts of upset for a comforting and soothing cuddle, but knowing each time you do this it's taking longer to get them to bed?

I'm usually have a no-nonsense approach to parenting but a rough week at work has worn me down and instead of ploughing on I wanted to spend time with Grace last night. Almost like therapy, my comforting her comforted me. It took half an hour to get her clothes off, she point blank refused... very noisily. But I felt better having soothed her through the process even though it should have taken two minutes. I eventually left her screaming on the change table with Matt the Husband who told me he disagreed with dragging it out and we just needed to ignore her tears and protests and get her into her jammies and into bed. I left and five minutes later once her head hit the pillow, the screaming stopped and she fell asleep.

I could have throttled him. I still want to because I think he was right and I was wrong. I know it's not about competing, about who knows best, but it does rile me to think I caused my daughter more upset by dragging it out. Hmph.

Discuss.

posted by a miserable mum in the morning