An Update
Real Quick.
~ Well we're back upstairs in the 'bed' - which is to say an air mattress that Zach picked up from his mom's last night. When we'll have the time or money to go out and buy a new bed, well, beats me.
~ I almost lost it today, or if you ask my mom (who was on the other end of the phone this morning), she'll say I did infact lose it. Hung up with her and used my last-resort option. I called the doctor's office. We got in this afternoon. I won't go into detail about how I clearly know more about restless leg syndrome than she does, or how we got into a heated philosophical 'discussion' about the ethics of giving your child Benadryl to sleep (she was for it, by the way, and for more than just a short-term solution). But the point is that it's pretty clear he has restless leg syndrome. Jacob fits the diagnosis criteria to a T.
~ I'm beginning to understand why I can't find much on the internet about co-sleeping past a certain age. It can't possibly be because I am the only one in the world sleeping with a child over the age of two, it must be because people know enough to not talk about it because they have been harassed about it by every person they know. I will not be ashamed out of this. This is what we want. This is healthy and normal. And I think I'll talk about it when I want instead of keeping it locked up like a secret because then maybe some other desperate, out-of-her-mind mother will stumble across my little blog one day and find salvation in the fact that there is at least one other American human out there who still shares sleep. And maybe someday, if I find a solution, I'll offer that up for her too.
~ We sat down as a family this evening and mapped out some new rules. We have it all planned out on paper. Getting that to translate to real life is a whole other story. I've always said that knowing the solution and being able to carry it out are completely different things. The truth of it is, is that when you are desperate is when you are most motivated for change. So you work on it for a couple weeks, but then things start to get a little better and you think, "Well what was the big deal anyway? We don't need this." So you ease up on the thing that was helping because you have forgotten so fast what it's like to be on the verge of going insane.
posted by xmas @ 12:07 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Well, we still share sleep, but we do start Isaac out the night in his twin bed, and he comes in with us between 3 and 5 AM. (But he doesn't quite as sleep challerged as Jacob).
I never thought of Restless Leg Syndrome... Isaac is definitely a wiggler when it comes to sleep, but he CAN be still if we are extremely firm about it. And usually being still is what it takes to make him finally get to sleep (after bath, stories, etc.)
In our family, I think it has more to do with a mother and son who cannot really sleep until they are OVERtired, and being overtired presents its own problems with sleep. I still stay up too late, but I can sleep much easier than when I was a child--it began to get easier for me at age 16, so maybe in 12 years Jacob and Isaac will have a better time? I bet that's comforting, huh? Hahahahaha.
We are desparate to get Isaac to sleep before midnight because he's starting Montessori soon. I'm hoping our next babe takes after his Dad, who was a big lump that slept through the night from the time he was born.
I agree with you on the Benadryl. I was hooked on it for a while last year, partly to help me sleep and also to help me with itching due to eczema. It's a tempting thought though because Isaac really likes Benadryl. We gave it to him at night when we first moved because we were all having bad allergies with so many boxes stacked up. It did make going to sleep easier!
I'm sure you/we are not alone. The thing that helps me the most psychologically is to think of Isaac as a special needs child in regards to sleep. It sounds like you do that already!
No, you aren't the only one and even though our co-sleeping has to do more with the limited space in our household, if it really bothered us, we would have change it a long time ago. I co-sleep with Drew because I prefer NOT sleeping alone. He starts off his night going to bed with Daddy and then when Matt gets up to get ready for work, I take his place until morning. It works out great! Colin prefers to sleep on his own, so that's not an issue either - but if he did want to join us... there wouldn't be any issue about it. My feeling is... when they are ready to be in their own bed... they will tell me, either by actions or words.
Our sleep issue right now is that Drew DOESN'T want to go to be because he is scared of the dark - particularly monsters or ghosts. He does everything he can to stall or procrastinate. And of course he is so used to going to bed with someone (Daddy) that he is accustomed to falling asleep with someone and can not doing it on his own, unless he crys himself to sleep (which doesn't happen) or falls alseep watching TV, which is another issue in itself.
In other words - you are not alone and the fact that you are starting to map out solutions is a step toward making sense on how to solve this issue.
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