Monday, July 19, 2010

It's like the song that never ends.

You know what's ironic about the title of my last post?  I still don't think my mom has even read it yet. 

I need to clean my house with an urgency.  And yet.  Here I sit.  Not doing anything urgently even though I should be.  I hate cleaning anyway, and moving too much upsets my stomach at the moment.  So yeah, it's like that.  I'm sure I'll get off my butt and do something about it today, though.  Ben keeps pulling can openers off the counter in the kitchen.  You know what really sucks?  That he can pull anything off the counter in the kitchen.  Man, it is really annoying.  It's my fault.  I'm supposed to keep the counters clear, right?  *grumble grumble*
Let's talk about Ben's sleep habits.  I know how boring it must be, but it's an all encompassing endeavor over here.  Before I started working at that temp job, Chris and I decided it was time to Get Serious about having Ben sleep on his own.  We put a chair outside of his door and after his bedtime routine, we kissed him, said good night, and put him in his bed.  Chris sat outside of his door until he fell asleep.  It actually went really well.  He got upset at first, but in a pretty short period of time, he fell asleep.  We had some ups and downs, but we managed to get it to where he was going to bed by himself consistently every night.  When he woke up in the night, it was usually pretty easy to settle him. 
Until, randomly, he started waking up in the middle of the night and not going back to sleep for three or four hours.  I was working by then, so we pretty much died.  We put him to bed later, and it stopped the extreme night waking, but I don't know if he gets enough sleep like this.  And now, he has decided that going to sleep is for suckers and he'd rather get out of bed, so I have to escort him back to his bed.  It's a game for him, but I don't know how to make it stop.  It usually takes an hour and a half to two hours to get him to go to sleep this way, and there's a lot of frustration on my part.  I don't like being grumpy and impatient with my kid, you know?
I guess I'll probably have to start from square one again, but even further from where we started in the first place.  We're doing kind of a modified version of The Baby Whisperer's Gradual Withdrawal, but now that he is actually able to sleep on his own, I don't know if that will work.  The problem seems to be that he gets up and wants me to take him back to his bed.  Now, I will lead him back to his bed, and just say something like, "It's time for night night, go to sleep, " and then go back to my chair, not engaging with him in any interesting way.  But for him, he thinks it's fun that when he gets out of bed, I get out of my chair and take him back to bed.  He just thinks that's hilarious, and he will do it again and again ad nauseum.  So, really, I'm just playing his game with him and helping him to prolong the inevitable of sleep.  So now, I have to develop a new strategy.  I know we wouldn't really have this problem if he was in a crib, but it's just not an option.  He has never ever ever been a crib sleeper.  And when I realized this, I took down the crib and got him a toddler bed.  Anyway, anyone else have this kind of problem?  Any suggestions?  Even though it takes so long to get him to sleep, it has been so blissful to be able to sleep in my own bed all night, next to my husband even!
Blah.  I guess I should go clean my house.  I've been putting it off for long enough today, I suppose. 

6 comments:

  1. My cousin uses a big 'boy' bed but it's a day bed and she turns it around backward so there is no opening, her kids sleep in that until they are 5-6. It works for them... might be something to try??

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  2. Have you tried shutting his door? Abby sleeps with her door shut. We tried leaving it open after moving to the toddler bed but she kept getting up and coming into our room.

    Also if closing his door isn't an option try just staying in bed pretending to be asleep and ignore the behavior completely. Especially if he thinks this a game vs "I'm scared cause I'm alone" then ignoring is key. Praise the good behaviors. Also maybe try a reward chart for sleeping in bed all night.

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  3. Beats me. Karli just turned 3 and she still sleeps in a crib. We're a little nervous about putting her in a big bed. But at least she's to the point now where she understands consequences of her actions and we should be able to reason with her. For now we are just working on potty training. One thing at a time is easiest.

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  4. We just have Tenzin sleep in his own bed, but in our room. If he wakes up at night he sometimes snuggles in with us and then we move him back to his bed a few minutes later. I don't know if that is an option for you, but it completely stopped his night time wanderings because he doesn't want to leave the room that everyone else is in. Also, we let him turn out all of the lights in the house before bed, so that he knows that all of the rooms are dark and unoccupied before we go into our room and he turns off that light. He kind of wiggles around a lot for about 20 minutes before he sleeps, but he stays in the room and in his own bed for the most part. Maybe put up a child gate so that he can't go anywhere besides his room and yours so that you don't have to chase him down, and he will most likely just return to where his 'peeps' are at. Bedtime for us is still a bit of a struggle, because we are all tired and grouchy, but those are the things that have helped us.

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  5. Sometimes Tripp will get up in the middle of the night and not really want to sleep, but spanking him really works, ha ha. No, really I have been letting him sleep on me, holding him, so that his sleepiness doesn't disappear and then he moves to a pillow when he gets more tired. I jolted awake the other night and the next thing I new a small body had been shoved off the bed between it and my bedside table. Good thing Tripp is small, but I didn't even realize he had come in- maybe I should make sure the pile of clothes are comfy, but keep having "accidents" of him falling off the bed, and maybe he'll stop coming in. Think it will work? LOL!

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  6. Right after you posted this, Velvet happened to start Karli on a "big girl bed." It's really just her crib with one side removed. For her first time, Karli wouldn't stay in it so Velvet scolded her. She told me how mommy got mad when I got home. I warned her that night that mommy would get mad if she got out. Then we had to try to make her understand that she could get up if she had been sleeping. She would just lay in the bed waiting for us as if she couldn't get out. Karli also has fallen off a couple times... without waking up. We know she hit the ground hard, too, because we were right under her room. I remember when I slept on the top bunk and woke up on the floor once. I guess it runs in the family.

    And thanks for the disclaimer on your next post. I skipped it.

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