Tuesday, October 14, 2008

no sleep...does he think he's in college?

I kept M on his one-nap schedule yesterday despite him acting (as so eloquently stated by Andrea) like he "had no brain."

And so begins the all too familiar cycle of utter sleep destruction where overtired snowballs into extremely overtired.

Frequent readers of this blog already know all of this (sorry to bore you again), but I never know when a newbie is visiting...some worn-out mama who is wondering if anyone else can relate to her child's sleep issues. And so, the destruction in detail:

7:00pm - in bed, falls asleep quickly
9:30pm - restless
12:30am til about 2:00am - AWAKE
5:45am til 7:45am - AWAKE (I left him in bed so I could read & pray...and he was content)

He just fell back asleep, so we'll see how long it lasts. I am very grateful that he did indeed go back down. Yesterday I didn't even get him out of his bed for the first time without a fit.

On a much sweeter note, I put on an old fleece this morning and felt something in the pocket. It was the pacifier that M used when we met him in Taiwan. Made me miss that little baby!!!

Yesterday my big boy and I went over to the university to feed ducks and hang out. It's amazing how much M likes being at "college." The must-be-entertained-every-second demands fade away, and he is content to sit and watch even when the smoothie well has run dry. We sat on a wall outside the student union and, I think because he was tired, he leaned his body over on mine, kicked his feet up on the wall, and chilled. I wish I could have snagged a photo...his pose was very "college boy." So maybe last night he was simply awake practicing for his college days.

WELL, his back-to-sleep lasted for 20 minutes. I'm pretty sure if you do the college math, that should easily make up for the 4 hours he missed out on last night!

8 comments:

Lynn said...

Sorry I am not much help on the sleep issue. But, I must say M looks right at home on campus!

rachel said...

i can so relate, sista! my jet-lagged kids were up from 11-12 last night. if you ever need to talk about sleep problems, shoot me an email. i got so much well-meaning advice that did not work for my kids.

sympathetically,
rachel

Nicole said...

WOW-he's up for 2 hours in the middle of the night-oy! that's not good. Do you go to him right away or do you let him cry it out?

my advice would be wait about 10 minutes-he might just fall back asleep. If not, go and make sure he's ok (which i'm sure he is), and pat him on the back and tell him night night-limit any talking or holding-leave the room and let him cry it out. I'm sorry, i'm a little harsh-but if he's been doing this for awhile, he's old enough to soothe himself back to sleep, he just has to learn how.

This worked for my kids, although they've usually been pretty good sleepers. Now, with Kaiya, she's a great sleeper too, but i do always go in and check on her b/c it's rare for her to wake up in the middle of the night. But, sometimes, when she wakes up, i do wait about 5--10 minutes and she sometimes goes back to sleep w/out me going in there! :)

Anyhow, i don't know his history of sleeping-i just read your most recent blog-so my advice may not be right for you . . . just thought i'd shoot my 2 cents!
Sleep is very important-i know-so anything can help!
Good LUCK!
nicole

Nicole said...

P.S. I read "happy sleep habits, happy child" by dr. weisbluth-i'm sure you've heard of it-but it REALLY worked for us-i followed it very closely.

One other thing is you might want to put him to bed earlier? like 6:45 or 6:30? Dr. Weisbluth talks about the more you sleep, the better you sleep-so earlier is not so bad.

Nicole said...

Oh trish, i'm so sorry-that just stinks. some kids are just not the best sleepers-my friends son is 6 and wakes up around 3,4am everyday and is up! Eiy! I don't know what i would do.
It will hopefully get better.
He's still a cutie-pa-tootie! :)
nicole

Cat said...

You inspired me to get a new and better camera! Thanks! I hope to have beautiful pics of my Matthew soon!
Courtney
www.adventuresofourfamily.blogspot.com

Rebecca Lily said...

M IS SO CUTE WITH HIS BACKPACK!!!!!

I wish I had advice to give about the napping thing. I hate to even say this... but all 4 of my kids were awesome nappers. Grant had problems sleeping through the night (as you well know) but he outgrew it right about the time he hit 2. Maybe that will happen with M. :)

xoxo

Yvonne Crawford said...

I say buy ear plugs and let him be. Okay I wouldn't have said that 6 months ago at all. But being a mom of 3, it's me or them. ha! So I sleep with ear plugs, noise machine etc. I can hear really bad cries.

I wouldn't do this for a baby under 6 months, but...M is older now...................

Lilypie 2nd Birthday Ticker