Please help!! OT nightmare.

[*Liz*]

It is Jacob again. And it is just awful. 5.25am he walked into my room and when I told him it was too early to get up he screamed the house down - and woke Megan. This is happening day after day after day and I can't take much more of it.

He basically isn't napping, or is napping so late in the day that it ends up being a short night and an EW after the nap anyway, but I beg and deal with a huge tantrum for a nap every now and again when his behaviour gets too awful to bear anymore.

I never get any bedtime resistance but I do get nap time resistance. Even if he had a 2 hr map he would go to bed at a normal time but just take a bit longer to fall asleep.

Yesterday he woke at 4.50am, screamed and woke Megan, and never went back to sleep again. No nap
again, and then fought bedtime at 6.30pm. His behaviour all day was dreadful obviously. I couldn't do
bedtime any earlier because of tea and as I needed DH home to deal with Js tantrums to get him to
bed.

I'm starting to wonder if he never was low sleep needs and has just been chronically OT for forever   .

Megan is heavily in the 2-1 now, and ready for 1 nap (she will sleep 3 hrs in one nap), so if i give J a nap he will scream and wake her up and bust her nap. And he WILL scream. He does every.single.time.

I'm furious and so tired and this is starting to affect my relationship with him. I have 2 screaming kids and it is 5.30am. J is screaming as I won't let him get up, Megan because she has been woken up again.

DH is working a 13 hr day (and is actually operating on people!!!), I have chemo due tomorrow and now I am shattered. And he will do the same tomorrow - I know he will.

What on earth can I do??? Why is he being like this   .

[C&B&E]

oh Liz, that's so hard 

The only thing that is in my toolkit when they get into this state is *really, really* early bedtimes for a few days.  It prevents them getting the 'second wind' at bedtime, and even if they wake at the same ridiculous time in the morning then at least you are chipping away at the OT.  It normally takes a week for us to get Ben out of a bad state of OT, and it's rough while we are doing it, but then at least there is a feeling of being able to come out the other side and try and start again with a normalish routine. 

[elf]

I went through something very similar with DD.  She would nap, then do the short night and start the day at around 5am, not nap and then get that second wind at 6pm and not be asleep til 7pm ish...  In hindsight I should have stopped offering naps and just done bedtime at 6.30pm each night for 3 weeks.  Once i actually did this and forced her to stop the nap things were better.  I think the key to it is making sure he has a quiet activity with very little stimulation instead of the nap so he is resting at that time, then also give another quiet time at around 4.30pm before dinner.  After dinner an opportunity to burn off dinner then bath and straight to wind down.  That second wind can come so easily and it can make you think they are  not tired but they are!!!  It is very hard, however, when you have 2 children to get into bed at night and that is why my DD got into OT state because I would put DS2 to bed first instead of her.  I'm not sure what time Megan's bedtime is but is it possible to put Jacob to bed first each night?  Nap dropping is quite tough and I would say that my DD took quite a few months for her body to actually get used to it, but once I stopped the nap we began to consistently get 11 hour nights.  She has now settled into 10.5 hour nights mostly with a few 11 hour ones to make up, but she is 'coping' much better than she used to.  It is very tempting to force that nap when their behaviour is so difficult but if it keeps contributing to a short night then they wake up tired in the morning and it becomes a vicious cycle...

[Tweakster]

I'm starting to wonder if he never was low sleep needs and has just been chronically OT for forever  Cry Cry.

Ditto here hon.  It's hard isn't it?  We can only do what we can do.  I feel so much for you (((hugs)))

I was going to say the same as the ladies, what time is he going to bed?  Whatever early time you think you are putting him down, go even earlier.   I think this nap transition is going to be the worst one yet TBH.  We'll hold your hand :-)

[scucci1979]

so many hugs Liz! You don't need this right now. I would try quiet time and early bt. 
Holding your hand!

[~inbalance~]

Will he go for quiet time at least?  Groclock?  Nightlight?  A special toy only for his bed?  Anything to keep him quiet and in his room??

Mega (((hugs))), that is SO hard to deal with. 

[babybarr]

Liz I would agree to try no nap (early "quiet" time) and early bed.

((((hugs))))

[*Liz*]

He goes to bed at 6.30-7pm. I honestly can't do earlier - he will go to bed before Megan if is his tired - I take him to his room for a few quiet books. But to do that I need someone to watch Megan downstairs. She can't be left alone downstairs, and if I shut her out the room or in her own room she would just scream for me. If she was in the room with J she would just jump and climb and bounce all over his bed - she wouldn't just sit and read books nicely. If I am alone M needs to go down first.

And really isn't 6.30pm early enough? I dread going earlier anyway.

Today i decided he had to nap. He started screaming at 5.30am and by lunchtime he was an utter disaster. We rode out the tantrum and he was asleep at about 12.40pm - woke at 2.45pm. I left him - there was no way I was waking that beast  . He still threw a 60 min tantrum when he got up  but was ok after that and went down for bed easily at 7.40pm. I guess he was asleep by 8pm.

He really is THAT tired.

I will obviously regret it when he wakes at 5am!! Actually I won't this time as he just needed the sleep.

Groclock - no - he just gets up anyway and screams over the fact the sunshine is not showing yet. Toys in bed - he has a load but he just wants to go downstairs. Nightlight - yeah he has one and has done for ages now - but he won't play in the dull light of it he wants up and the proper light on.

He will do quiet time but rarely in the bedroom. Basically he will space out in front of the TV  , although i am having some luck with audiobooks in the bedroom (apart from the other day when he got out of bed, turned the volume knob and scared himself half to death  and obviously woke Megan).

Big sigh.

Will see what happens tomorrow and then see what next.

[elf]

We have just come out the other end of the nap dropping and like Wendy said, it is very difficult.  TBH I would say it took around 5 months before my DD could happily go all day, every day with out a nap.  The early bedtime is a tricky one because from my experience, once my DD dropped her nap she settled into 10.5/11 hour nights mostly.  So early bedtimes for us actually meant early wake ups.  What worked for us in the end was being very strict on quiet time.  I have audio books that she must listen to in her room.  My rule is that the TV doesn't go on until she has had a lye down.  So we have lunch then into her room for her rest, then if she has her rest I will put the TV on for her.  Basically I have found that if between the hours of 12pm - 2pm there is 'down time at home' then that revives her for the afternoon activities.  I wouldn't go earlier than 6.30pm for bed but I would do whatever I could to keep evenings low key.  Last night my DD was so tired and my Mum was here and put her to bed at 6.50pm and I heard her up at 5.30am.  We know know that no matter how tired she is at night, it is actually better for us to have her watching "In the Night Garden' between 6.30pm - 7pm and then start cleaning teeth, toilet and stories after that - lights out at around 7.15pm and that will generally get us a 6.15am wake up.  DD hasn't napped for months but I do feel like there are days when she needs it but I push through, as now that we are out of that short night/nap cycle things are much better.  She wakes up in the morning very well rested - as it would appear tat 10.5/11 hours of night is enough for her.  It really took 3 weeks of doing this every single for it to begin to make a difference.  We have just been on a holiday and she did go back to napping for the week, but only because she was swimming every morning and physically shattered and we were happy with her to be up later at night, but I won't do this at home - got back home and straight back to normal.  I did find once I had broken that cycle of napping then after about 2 months if she took a nap say once a week it didn't muck up night sleep. 

[aidenmc]

Liz, we had a similar situation with ds2 when he was between 2.5 and 3 years. He would not nap, I kept trying to force the nap. When he finally dropped it night sleep got a lot better. He also would do a 10.5 or 11 hr night. In fact much of what Elf said rang true for him. We used quiet time, car rides and, I have to admit it, TV as tools to get him to relax. In factI will confess that I trained both ds1 and ds2 to watch tv with a little snack on their own while we slept. I don't like the idea of too much tv and still limit it with them at age 5 and 10, but I tell you, once I had them trained, it really saved us from those EWs. It helped that our house was small so our bedroom was nearby. They have been doing it since and it has been a sanity saver as the EWs are the hardest for me. I can't wait to train ds3 to do the same. 

But really, I'm sure it will sort itself once he finally drops that nap. I know they say that TV is stimulating for children but i have found it a good way to enforce some downtime without having to fight them on it (which is something you do not need right now). Although I like elf's idea better - give tv as a reward after real quiet time reading or something.

I really hope it gets better for you soon as I know you've got so much going on. Honestly, in your shoes I would do whatever works. Eventually their sleep does become more normal (that I know, and should remind myself  , from having 2 older boys).

[*Liz*]

Elf - you are being so very helpful here - thank-you. It does sound as though J will go the same way really. I do think quiet time is going to be key and what you have done sounds very sensible. I do naturally do similar really. Try for a proper rest and then after out the TV on for a bit to keep him down. I perhaps do it a bit late in the day though. We use INTG too and I found it made a massive difference to getting him to bed easily as it calms him down. I do bath and teeth etc before, so just books and bed when it finishes (I record it so I can vary the times).

What time do people here do dinner?? I find his behaviour is at it's worst then and he is so tired he doesn't eat much. He isn't a big eater anyway but his stomach is often rumbling when he gets up at 5.30am and I guess that doesn't help much. He has dropped his bedtime milk now so I can't fill him up like that anymore!!

He woke at 5.30am - so a big nap gave me a 9.5 hr night  - but he is happy this morning rather than screaming. Although he is never good by lunchtime after a short night  .

I need to decide what instructions to leave for my parents though. I have chemo today, and they stay over. DD is sick and woke every hour last night (DH dealt with her so I could sleep). I feel really guilty leaving them when their sleep is this bad though  . Not that I will be any use to them - my routine is puke at 6pm then pass out for the night at 7pm, wake about 11pm and take more drugs, then pass out until the morning  .

[babybarr]

Liz today you need to worry about you.  Your LOs will be ok.  You have a good team of helpers on board.

I think given all that's going on today I would perhaps let J have a nap and at least then you won't have to deal with a very tired toddler and just let him have the shorter later night.  I don't think it's worth the effort to keep him up all day just to struggle to get an early bed.

((((((hugs))))))  thinking of you

[aidenmc]

((((((((hugs)))))))))) Liz. Agree with babybarr!

[~inbalance~]

Liz today you need to worry about you.  Your LOs will be ok.  You have a good team of helpers on board.

Yep, they will be fine and let someone else worry about it. 

Dinner is between 5:30-6 here.  It can be a pretty awful time in this house too if the boys are hungry and tired. 

[Tweakster]

Liz please take it easy today hon...let the others do the worrying and dealing.  No guilt about this!!!

I still think early bed would help you but of course the logistics are not simple.  I agree that I would rather have a nap and a shorter night with a happy kid. 

Dinner is between 6-6:45/7 most nights due to our scheduling and depending on what we are having.  It's dinner then bed most nights.  But it's a bit of a nightmare because daycare gives them a high carb snack at 5ish and he's not hungry these days.  Plus dinner takes FOREVER - he's a good eater but a sloooow eater and faffs around way too much lately.  Because he was tired earlier this week he cried through the entire thing, cried because the pieces were too big, cried because he dropped something, cried about not having all the utensils we did ie having a knife...well you get the picture.