Our youngest, Nathan, has been having difficulty with
sleeping. It all started just after my
husband was diagnosed with cancer and began undergoing tests and
treatment. Since there was a lot going
on, I didn’t fight when Nathan wanted to come sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s
room. He’s had sleeping issues in the
past and it’s usually taken several months of sleepless nights for me to get
him back on track.
That was over six months ago.
For that time, Nathan has been sleeping on his “little bed”
(a crib mattress on the floor beside our bed).
He usually starts out the evening in his own bed and then sometime
around 2 am, wakes up and yells until I come get him and bring him to the
little bed. There were nights where he
slept the night through in his own bed and we made a big deal out of them,
hoping to encourage him.
Since things have settled down on the cancer front, I
decided it was time to get Nathan sleeping back in his own room. I borrowed a rocking chair from friends and
prepared to spend the night in his room if necessary. We warned him that he was going to have to
sleep in his own bed, but if he got scared, Mommy would come and sit with him
until he fell back asleep. Which is
pretty much how the plan went.
Now I’m getting up two and three times a night to sit for
half an hour or an hour with him while he calms down. Not ideal but I’m hoping the times will get
shorter as he gets accustomed to the new situation. It’s hard on me but I’m relearning the
ancient art of the nap.
We’ve also discovered another side effect. There’s a bus stop right in front of our
house and the first bus of the morning comes at 5:30. Which wakes Nathan up and then he wants to go
downstairs and watch TV. I allowed it
the first few days until I realized he was getting cranky and tired at 4
pm. So I’ve been trying to think of ways
to fix this. (For some reason, the bus
company is unwilling to suspend service until after my child is up. Go figure.)
This morning, I tried something different. He woke up at 5:30 and I could hear him
playing in his room but instead of going to get him, I stayed in bed. My concern has always been that if Nathan is
too loud, he’ll wake up his brother across the hall. And Alex does not do well with interrupted sleep. This morning, we were lucky and Alex slept
through Nathan’s noise. Nathan ended up
going back to sleep around 6:15 (or at least, that’s when he got very quiet
again) and was still asleep when I went to check on him at 7.
We’ll see if this strategy continues to work. Actually, first, we’ll get to see if this
means a less cranky child during the afterschool hours. Wish us luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment