maybe this is why I am such a damned bad mood all the time, huh?

[flea]

Tired. Casper seems to be settling with Daddy, reading the last book right before 9pm, so I say goodnight and go to bed. Casper then spends the next hour wandering between my and her bed. Claims she wants to sleep with me, but is restless and apparently not tired. mr. flea and I get fed up and shut her in her room. She whines quietly for half an hour. I might have been able to fall asleep despite this, except I have some heartburn and the armadillo is now kicking the hell out of me. mr. flea gets softhearted and goes to Casper's room to help her fall asleep. This results in loud crying that she wants to sleep in Monmy's bed. After 15 minutes, I go get her and put her in my bed and warn her that it is time to sleep. She falls asleep. I turn over, removing her finger from my belly button, since I can't sleep in the position that allows her finger in my belly button. She wakes up and demands belly button. I say no, explaining. She cries. I lose it, and tell her off for making Mommy too tired to live, and leave the room. Much crying despite mr. flea's arrival ensues. Twenty minutes later, Casper knocks on the door. mr. flea explains that they have come to an agreement that she will tell me she's sorry for keeping me up, and I will reassure her that I still love her, and she will go to sleep with him. This goes fine, except for the part where she refuses to leave and demands my belly button and to sleep with Mommy.

It's now 11:30 and she's in her bed with him, crying off and on, and I am too angry to sleep, and contemplating another day completely fucking shot due to exhaustion tomorrow. And I wonder why I bite people's heads off when they're idiots at work.

Comments

[jesseh.livejournal.com]

And this is why I'm afraid to have babies.

Good luck.

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

>>> mr. flea gets softhearted and goes to Casper's room to help her fall asleep.

Oooh. I'm sympathetic, but that's the wrong move.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I told him so at the time. And he admitted it after.

[vwbug.livejournal.com]

Oh, you poor, poor thing. I wish I had more to offer.

[loligo.livejournal.com]

Were you on my flist yet when we discovered the Melatonin Miracle? We used to have several nights a week just like the one you described, and Chuckles was just as exhausted as we were. We tried 75 micrograms (not milligrams!) of melatonin half an hour before our chosen bedtime (8:30) for several nights in a row, and after that she fell asleep almost effortlessly at the right time for a couple weeks afterwards. And the longer she stayed on schedule, the easier it was to *keep* her on schedule -- now we give her a maintenance dose maybe once a month just to keep that internal clock on track.

Yes, the bottle of melatonin will probably say "not for use by children under 18", but we were satisfied by the various research studies we found on the web, and the dose we used was *far* lower than the doses used in many studies of kids with neurologically-based insomnia. Better Living Through Chemistry.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember your wonderment - glad to know it's still working. I'd love a link to something more if you have one. Our usual problem isn't getting to sleep in the first place, but the waking up in the middle, but I do worry about her quality of sleep, with all the crying out in her sleep and night-waking.

[loligo.livejournal.com]

Doing a PubMed search on "child insomnia melatonin" brings up 32 citations; the most useful full-text article seems to be this one http://adc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/88/10/899 .

We're following all the most conservative safety recommendations of that and similar articles: using melatonin only intermittently, and at doses lower than a healthy brain produces on its own (300 mcg or lower).

It definitely has a much more dramatic effect on sleep onset problems than on other sorts of sleep problems, but we did find that Chuckles's night-waking problems were reduced by about a third, maybe. (She used to be up for 2+ hours in the middle of the night once every week or two, and each time there were days' worth of smaller aftershocks until we got her back on track.) My feeling is that for her, anyway, getting to sleep before she gets overtired and getting some really deep, restful sleep early in the night *does* help keep her asleep, although it's obviously not the entire answer.

She still wakes up at 3:00 AM unable to fall back asleep maybe once a month or so, but she's finally independent enough (she's three and half now) that after she comes and checks in with us, she's usually willing to go back to her room and play quietly. Sometimes she falls asleep after playing for a few hours, sometimes she's up till morning.

[loligo.livejournal.com]

I guess I should add that she does still wake up at 3:00 a couple times a week and climb into bed with us, but she falls right back to sleep and so do we, so we don't really consider this a problem (not compared to the old days!).

We've made enough progress on various other sleep issues in the past year that I have confidence we'll eventually get her into her own bed for the whole night, every night.

[cashmerepett.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry you have to go through this. I hope you guys can reach some kind of arrangement where you can get enough sleep to not be zombies.

I know that there's no tried and true method and even if you do manage to get a schedule down that you can live with, it tends to shift and change with the toddler.

Every time I think we have it down, Owen changes and decides he doesn't want to sleep a certain way or not at all and that is the worst.

There have been a few times when we just shut him up in his room with a snuggle pillow and blanket on the floor and leave him to his own devices. He does eventually give up and fall asleep. But it's hellish to go through.

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

Gack. This would be one reason I'd be scared to have kids! I would go CRAZY with such interrupted sleep!

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

So sorry to hear about the rough nights. I'm tempted to say that things will improve eventually, but I know that would only make you (rightfully) pissed off!