It seems I've had a fair number of posts regarding Sam's sleep habits since I started this blog last August. Well, here's another. Actually, I'm going to do a recap of everything that's happened and what we've tried to do to work it out. Sometimes I feel like we're always playing catch up, trying to counter Sam's activities without much success, much like airport security measures taken in recent years...First it was no liquids, then removing your shoes, now full body scans and pat downs. Always one step behind.
Anyway, Sam was a good sleeper for a long time. We're talking 12 hours at night, a good nap in the afternoon and so on. Then he discovered his freedom. He could get out of the crib on his own. So the saga began. We moved him to a toddler bed sometime around Christmas. I was worried about him crashing out of his crib and so on. That actually worked fairly well as he initially didn't understand he could get out of bed without Jason or I coming to get him and apparently the allure of climbing out of the crib was gone. It was just a regular bed.
All good until Sam figured out he could get out whenever he wanted to, which he then did. His move: Get out of bed whenever he wanted. Counter-move: gently sending him back to bed (unsuccessful), bribing (unsuccessful), punishing by taking away toys or shutting his door (unsuccessful), finally...the clock. The color changing clock. It really was revolutionary and put an end to Sam getting up at 5AM and wanted to spend time with us. It also cut down on middle of the night wake ups, but they were not totally eliminated. Anyway, at least Sam stays in bed until around 6:30 or so each morning, waiting for his clock to turn yellow. I know that he often awakes before then as we'll catch him reading books before his clock turns. But he stays in his room. On weekends when his clock turns yellow, he often waits outside Jason and my bedroom door until we wake up too. We didn't coach him to do that, but if we're still asleep, he'll bring some books by our door and wait until we wake up. What a good boy.
Anyway, the clock solved the early wake up problem. Then he wanted his lights on at night. So we'd put him to bed, and he'd turn his lights on and stay up reading for much too long. So we put a little cover on his light switch so only adults with longer fingers can operate the light switch. That solved the light problem. But then he'd turn on the hallway lights. Jason rigged the hallway lights so they don't work, so that solved that problem. Then there have been all sorts of manifestations of other delay tactics and staying up later at night. Asking for a drink, using the magic words "I have to potty" (how quickly he learned to use pottying for manipulation), asking to be covered up, again, asking for another story, asking for a kleenex, asking for his music to be turned on again (it only plays for 30 min. which just isn't quite enough...) etc. etc. etc.
We decided to let Sam have his lights on for awhile after we put him to bed so he could calm down and read for awhile. We were hoping that would keep him in his room and prevent us from having to help him return to bed. So we set up his little lamp with a toddler-friendly button to turn it on and off and let him read after our bedtime routine. That was actually fairly successful (in that it reduced the total number of getting-up instances), but he still persists in getting out of bed and doing all sorts of random things like shutting all the other doors upstairs, creeping down the stairs to watch Jason and I watch TV and so on. When Jason and I go to bed, Sam is asleep, so we go ahead and turn off his light and go to bed. Except that now if he wakes up during the night, he uses his toddler-friendly light switch and turns his light on and reads in the middle of the night.
You may be wondering, as I have wondered myself, whether Sam really needs the sleep we're apparently trying to force upon him. Well, I really think he does. For one, he has these awful tantrums sometime between 10AM and noon...almost every day...and they're like 10 or 20 minutes...and the noise is unbearable. So I'll sometimes have him go to his room to calm down which often leads to him falling asleep. And he takes long naps, like 2-3 hours most of the time. I could settle for an hour or hour and a half, but he goes on and on and on. Secondly, I've talked to other parents with children of similar ages and they are going through the exact same thing. Can it really be that all our kids just suddenly go from needing 11 hours of sleep at night to 8? Really? Or perhaps they're all going through similar developmental stages where they're trying to exert control over their lives but clinging to the presence of their parents?
Anyway, our next move is to put a timer on Sam's light so it will not turn on between the hours of 9PM and 6AM. I've been meaning to do that for a few days, but haven't yet. I'm sure there will be a counter move, but I can't anticipate what it will be yet. I will report more later. The sleep saga continues.
Matthew is sleeping, generally without making a peep, from around 7 or 7:30PM until 6:30AM. The little angel. At least Sam will have prepared us for the transition which is sure to come in the future. For now, we enjoy our little angel sleeper.
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