My kid was a very colicky baby. Parenting is rough. The fact that you feel like a bad parent means you are most definitely not a bad parent.

It’s a tough age. I remember the struggle all too well, and many nights I fell asleep before my kid did. I’m not sure if it’s their chance to control something when so much of their life is out of their control at this age. Hopefully you can find something that works better for all of you

Since it sounds like he’s used to you or your wife being there, you can try slowly removing yourself. What we did with our kid is start with a parent sitting or laying next to the bed, then every few days moving a little closer to the bedroom door. We’d still stay until they fell asleep.

Our kid got most anxious when we got to the part where moving put us out of their room, so we did that step a little more slowly where we stayed at the entrance of the bedroom but would have to leave the room for increasingly longer periods of time (go get a book to read, go to the bathroom, etc). They struggle with anxiety in general though, so your kid may not have this hurdle.

We too keep books next to their bed which they can read or look at until they get sleepy. We also have a volcano lamp we turn on at night they can watch.

For younger kids, Sesame Street and PBS Kids have great learning game apps that don’t collect much data. My kid also enjoyed the Lego Duplo games.

For drawing Sketchbook is good.

Mine is very excited, both for extended family to get here and for Santa. If she sleeps til 5 tomorrow morning I’ll be surprised

It could be a growth spurt that’s happening or a new skill (crawling, standing up, or even walking) they’re working on. Do they seem more hungry than usual? If they’re getting more mobile it could be a hungry tummy that’s keeping them up.

Hang in there!

Younger kids:

• Madagascar
• The Shrek movies
• The Despicable Me movies
• Any Muppet movie

Older kids:

• Honey I Shrunk the Kids
• The Karate Kid
• ET
• The Goonies
• Kindergarten Cop
• Matilda
• Jumanji
• Cool Runnings
• The Mighty Ducks

We still pay allowance in cash for our preteen. It gets divided into save, give and spend. If there’s something she wants purchased online, she pays us the cash and we order it with our card. If the purchase is going to take most/all of her current spending money we do point that out but don’t prevent her from spending it.

I’m not sure yet what we’ll do when she gets closer to driving age. Most likely get a debit card so she can get that experience before going out on her own after graduation. But for now we want to build a more solid connection of physically parting with the money when it’s spent.

edit: fixed autocorrect error

When my kid was a toddler we told her, “Why did the turkey crosse the road? Because the chicken was on vacation.”

She thought it was hilarious and would retell it with 2 random things she could see at the time: “Why did the couch cross the road? Because the floor was on vacation.”