The other day, I took L to a sleep specialist. We have been struggling with sleep issues from basically day one with him. I didn't really think that he has a sleep problem in the medical sense. He doesn't snore, stop breathing, have restless legs, etc..., he just doesn't sleep. Anyway, the Dr was really nice and sat and talked to me for over an hour (my poor mom had to entertain L the whole time in the waiting room). He gave me a few options of things to do and the one that we agreed might work best with our lifestyle is instead of working on putting L to bed early, put him to bed late. Like 10:30-11pm late. He said it will take awhile for this to work, but once he's comfortable falling asleep immediately when he's tired, gradually move his bedtime up 15 minutes. We are to wake L up at his normal wake-up time (around 7am-ish) and cut his naps down to an hour or so. This all sounds great in theory, but in practice it is freaking ridiculous! Let me explain....
A and I have always worked alternating schedules...basically our whole marriage. He works 2pm-10pm. He doesn't come home till around 10:30pm-11pm normally. I work 9-1pm on all the weekdays that A works and his two days off I work all day. A works the weekends as well, essentially, I have L 5 afternoons alone. Since A comes home late and stays up late, he usually sleeps in till I leave at 8:40am. So here's how this is all playing out.....I get L early because A is sleeping, I get L late because A is working late, and I get 5 days of shorter naps. Seriously? I don't want to sound whiny about this, but really....I am feeling like I am getting the shaft end of this deal. It's exhausting to have everything sitting on my shoulders. Because of our weird schedules, I've been carrying a lot of the weight on my shoulder as it is. I have done the new schedule for three days now and I have to say, mom is totally on the brink of exhaustion. L, not so much. Hahahaha. Seriously, the child stayed up till almost midnight fighting me last night. AND he was up at 1:30am screaming. Hmmm...I know the Dr said this is something that is going to take some time to get it working, but I am hoping it happens sooner rather than later!
We are also implementing a new system to try and reduce some of the weird little quirky behaviors that he does at night. We haven't started it yet because our weekend was ridiculously busy, but this week we are on it. It's also going to help us promote good behaviors rather than bad. An example of the quirky things he does are having 7 plus blankets every night. If we can reduce a blanket, he will get a marble put into a jar. When he collects a set number of marbles (starting off with a low amount and moving higher), he gets a treat, or fun activity. We can use marbles for picking up toys, eating dinner, really any good behavior we want to promote.
Finally, the Dr recommended that he see a psychiatrist to make sure there are no underlying problems (such as OCD or ADHD) that could be causing the issues. I just called to set up and appt today....we shall see where this all takes us! Here's hoping for some peaceful sleep soon!!!
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