Spent the morning talking/lecturing Big J on his sleep issues lately. A four year old needs more sleep than he is getting.
Once Summer hit, I pushed his bed time from 8 to 9 ... it gave us time to play outside, eat a late meal, and quite frankly, it wasn't dark at 8:00 for him to even be ready to sleep.
Lately, a 9:00 bedtime ends up being 9:45, with ME being more exhausted than he! I have tried starting our routine (which has not changed in two years) at 8:45, 8:30, shoot, even 8:15 ... nothing has seemed to help. He whines that he isn't tired, has to go tell Daddy "one more thing," and shuffles around the bathroom before getting his teeth brushed. It is always one more glass of water, one more hug or one more time to go pee.
He also cannot seem to let us leave his room without starting to cry and asking us to "stay with him." It pulls at your heart strings, but for his sake, and ours, he has to get to bed and start giving us Mommy and Daddy time again.
He also has been whining about taking his naps, both at school and at home. I understand that some kids give up their naos around his age, but, when your child is a nasty, cranky ball of tears by 4:30 ... he still needs a nap.
so, this kid, who no longer naps and who is probably finally falling asleep around 10:00 is finding is way into our bed on an almost nightly basis. I have tried saying no, having him stay for only a few minutes ... but he always end up remaining in the bed until morning. This wouldn't be that big of a deal, but when I am waking up to go work out at 5:30 or get up for work at 5:45 ... he decides it is time for him to be awak too. This means my 4 year old is getting, on average, 7 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period.
Not good for him or me.
Anyone have any good advice? Suggestions? Ways for me to keep from having a mental breakdown because now my husband feels that it is time to have a 3rd .... SHIT! I cannot get my first and second to sleep thought the night and you want me to add a THIRD?!?!??!?!??!?!?!?! Sweetie ... you best start dreaming!!!!!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Counting sheep ...
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2 remarks:
LOL!! Did u read my post about how Carson is getting better finally? He was doing kinda the same thing - not wanting to sleep at night unless we were standing by his bed - which lasted 20-30 min or so...not happy. So I started moving further and further way from the bed each night and now we lay him down and then stand at the door for a couple minutes and then move to the hall. Most of hte time he doesn't even wake up anymore - but for a while he's wake up after a few minutes and look up and if we weren't there he'd cry so we'd poke our heads in the door and tell him to lay down. Anyway, it seems to finally be working - but it did take a couple months...lol.
FYI, he still takes naps so I don't have advice on that one :)
Good luck!
Oh and PS - he still comes in our bed around 2 or 3am and stays til morning - but luckily for me I wake up at 6:20 and MOST mornings he stays sleeping until 7...
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