Does your 3-4 year old calm down at night?

Question

I can literally play and entertain my 3.5 year old all day, be outside all day, and he will not nap all day but after dinner he still will not wind down and read a book, color, or watch his iPad/the tv. It is so exhausting. I just want to relax after being active all day with him and he just will not let us. He will scream in our faces “PLAY WITH ME” and completely meltdown if we don’t, and start throwing stuff. It is awful. I HATE evenings. All I do is just countdown the seconds until he goes to bed.

Answer

I would stop entertaining him so much during the day. He needs to learn to play and entertain himself. He's come to expect all of your attention, at all times. My 2 year old happily plays alone throughout the day. He still gets plenty of attention, but not constantly. In the evenings he either helps me with dinner prep or plays quietly.

Answer

Nope, after dinner is hype city around here. I remember as a kid all my siblings and I were hyper after dinner too. My dad hated it and told us to shut up every 5 minutes, we weren’t allowed to do anything we actually wanted to do because he was tired and didn’t want to listen to us play. I hated being treated like that so as a parent now we take our kids outside after dinner as long as the weather’s decent (no rain or below freezing temp). If it’s crap weather we do something at home like deep clean a room (make it a game to keep them interested) or bake muffins or craft or jump on their inside trampoline. I try to use that post-dinner energy so they’ll be tired for bedtime a couple hours later.

Answer

Can you read to him while he’s playing? So you can have a seat but still sort of interact with him? Kids are exhausting tho 😩

Answer

Could he be overtired? My daughter get way more wild and in our faces if she’s overtired

Answer

Sounds overtired. Also sounds like he isn’t independent. He expects your attention constantly, because you entertain him ask day long. My 3 year old has been told multiple times that life isn’t all about him🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ he plays well alone. He knows that he can’t always have our attention. He sits down at night to wind down only because he’s made to.

Answer

Man. I think it's a boy mom thing. Ha. My friend has the same issue. I have a pretty energetic girl, but about 45 mins before bed, she's ready to watch Paw Patrol and eat a snack. 😅

Answer

say we're going to change up our nights.  It's story time,  you play teacher and read your students a story or quiett coloring time, quiet play doh time.

Answer

We don’t do any screen time after dinner but he does get our attention. It’s when he gets to do big kid stuff since his sister (1.5yrs) goes to bed before him. He knows we have to be quiet because she’s sleeping. Read, puzzles, board games, blocks, color, etc. It’s sort of his special time. There’s only about 30 min of playtime between dinner and bed. We usually finish eating around 6:45 and then put our daughter to bed. He gets ready for bed at 7:35 and is in bed by 8.

Does your 3-4 year old calm down at night?

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