I’ve been unreasonable exhausted for the past year or so and have lately been trying to get to the bottom of it because I can’t take it anymore and have finally decided it’s more than just having a weird sleep schedule and burning the candle at both ends. My primary doctor thought it could be something neurological so he referred me to the sleep clinic, to one doctor in particular because he has more training beyond the pulmonary sleep problems like sleep apnea. It took two months to get in to the sleep clinic and when I did, I...
sleep
{sigh}
Grace has been having a very hard time at nigth lately. We took away her “canopy” (it’s really just a sheet right now) a couple of weeks ago. She earned it back Monday night by having five nights in a row where she went to bed well and stayed in her bed all night. It lasted 1.5 nights. Tuesday night she was having a little trouble getting to bed. I told her she had to stay in bed until her CD was over. If she was still awake when it was done, she could come down and get a...
A good day … a bad night
I was a “good” mom today. Grace asked to make “color sprinkles like in my magazine book,” meaning paintings with colored sand like in her Highlights magazine. I normally would find a way to talk her out of this sort of thing, but today I decided to let her do it. We don’t have sand, so I used salt. It was messy and her hands turned blue but she had a blast and I got the kitchen cleaned and talked to her while she was doing it. (I’ll take pictures of the art later) Grace only watched an hour...
room update
The hubby says: I’m not sure if this two in one room will work. Although it seems to have helped Grace go to sleep and stay in her own bed, Connor REALLY does not like when we bring Grace into the room for her bed time. He has a very difficult time with it. Even when Grace goes in really easy, Connor gets mad that I tell him good night and leave. So tonight I tried to hold him and rock him for a minute and all he did was tried to wiggle out of my arms and look...
To do: Try something completely different
We decided a few weeks ago it was time for Grace to move from her toddler bed to a twin-size bed. We hoped it would help with her sleeping troubles if she felt more grown-up. After earning 10 stars for having good nights, she got her bed, which she had picked out. We picked it up Monday and set it up right away. At the last minute, I thought it might be nice to have the kids share a room. I don’t really know why, just a feeling. We were a little torn though so we explained the two...
I jinxed it
Grace was up in the middle of the night last night. And she’s up again now. We had a full day today but telling you about it will have to wait until tomorrow because her crying is draining my last bit of energy. And oddly, it has woken up Connor, who is also now crying.
To do: get this kid to sleep
We’re back to having sleeping issues with Grace after several good months. For the past nine days, she’s been fighting bedtime and/or waking up at night and taking an hour or so to get back to sleep. We tried every strategy the first time around and what finally worked was emptying her room and letting her earn things back by filling up a sticker chart. She still is getting stickers (actually, stars on a dry erase board now) to earn special things but she seems not to care anymore. I just got this from Mark: Connor was waking up...
Are your kids wired or tired?
I urge all parents to read the story at the top of my “Stuff I have found interesting” list in the right-hand sidebar. It’s about kids’ sleep needs, and I agree with much if not all of it. I can give lots of examples from my own kids (and myself too) about points made in the article. It also has an accompanying story about sleep disorders in kids that was pretty interesting. (You’ll see the link to it once you go to the main story)
Getting out the door is oh so fun
Mark had his last finals today — please pray that his Spanish teacher is feeling generous — so he went to school a bit later than normal. He brought Grace downstairs while getting ready so I got to sleep in until Grace came back to my room around 9. (Connor just finished cutting his first molars so he had a loooong night of sleep last night.) The extra time to sleep was wonderful, except that we need to be heading out the door about 9:50 to get to Mom’s group on time. And I was supposed to be watching...
*sigh*
Note from May 25, 2008: I’m deleting my myspace page so I’m moving this here from there. It is my first real blog entry and was originally titled “never have children.” This night (Sept. 17, 2007, Grace’s 3rd birthday) was strikingly similar to some we’ve been having lately. I started the night with high hopes. After four nights of being up with Grace for hours in the middle of the night, Mark and I headed to bed early. I read for a little while and turned out the light at 10:30. I thought I could actually get 8 straight...
