Thursday, July 30, 2009

Bedtime battles

Jupiter has a new routine I am not taking kindly too.

It used to be that we would do our bedtime routine, read three picture books, say goodnight, turn on her music (very very loud to drown out all other stimuli), and she would rock until she fell asleep. It worked. She went to sleep.

Now, over the last few weeks, it's been: "The problem is, I just can't go to sleep." For hours. After 2 and a half hours a couple Saturdays ago, when she left her bed and climbed into mine just shy of 9pm, I grabbed a children's book off the shelf in my room. (as opposed to the library downstairs.) The book is called Happy Days on the Farm and was published in I think 1941. It came with the house, but I always used to read it when I came to visit and so it's still here. Quick synopsis, Ronnie and Ruthie are twins who live in the city with their parents, but wish they could go visit their grandparent's farm. So one day their father comes home and announces that he and their mother are going to take a trip to South America and will be gone for several months. The next day, their grandfather picks them up, they go to the farm, and the parents go to South America for several months. It never does mention why the parents went off to South America for several months. I've been very curious about that. Anyway, we read Happy Days on the Farm until 9:52 when she finally fell asleep. In my bed. Where she slept happily all night. Kicked me a lot too, but at least it was accidental for a change.

Last night it was the thunder. She also had a nap yesterday afternoon, from sheer exhaustion. We read four chapters of Little House in the Highlands until I lost my voice. Eventually I fell asleep, and she fell asleep at some point after that. The problem is not that she is not tired. She is EX. HAUST. ED. (as am I.) Right now, instead of going to sleep, she's sitting on her bed in a pile of toy horses. One night that worked. She played in her room by herself and finally bored herself to sleep.

Weather? It's actually turned warm and humid this week. She hates heat and humidity. Lack of routine in the summertime? She's just so overtired at this point she can't turn off? I don't know what to try at this point. But there MUST. BE. SOMETHING.

I would keep her up later, but her evening behavior has been atrocious. Totally incapable of making good choices. Tonight she was totally disrespectful while she was in the shower, so when she got out of the shower I handed her her nightclothes and her pull up and told her she could get herself ready, since she wasn't treating me nicely. She threw the pj's and pull up across the room and demanded that I help her. I told her that I could not help that voice, and that she could choose between getting herself ready and going to bed wet and naked if that was how she was going to speak to me. She demanded about 20 more times, finally managed a nice voice. We went back in the bathroom. She got angry because the pull up she threw was now in the still damp tub, and wanted me to get her another one. I'm sorry. It's wet because you made the choice to throw it and that's where it landed. So you can't have a different pull up tonight. You'll have to wear that one. She didn't like that either. And so on..and so on. She did actually settle down enough to have her three picture books. We said goodnight, I turned on the music, and 20 minutes later the rigamarole started. She can't rock because she's too tired. (so go to sleep!! ) She just can't go to sleep.

I can. I can go to sleep.

She's still playing with the horses.

Two weeks of vacation start tomorrow. In less than 24 hours. We'll have 16 days to beat this thing.

Here she comes...

2 comments:

Lisa said...

Sounds so familiar. Have you tried melatonin 30 minutes before bed? Our p-doc says that you can safely give 9 mg.
I'm so sorry.....

matryoshka said...

someone else mentioned melatonin to me way back, last winter, I think..where do you get melatonin? GNC???