Alyssa has been having some trouble staying asleep and in bed throughout the night lately. The past week (or longer, it's all a blur) she has been found standing at her gate calling for me to "tuck her in" again or wanting me to lay with her, or wanting to come lay in my bed (HA!). I am talking about all hours of the night here...12:00 am, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00 etc...sometimes all these hours in one night. If she is not standing at her gate beckoning me I hear her in her room talking. I go in to find her looking out her window saying "WOW, look at all the beautiful stars God made" or "It's really dark, I only see one star" or "There's the moon, see it? Mommy come here and look."
I tried to reason with the child that although God has made everything and even though it is amazing, we do not star gaze at 3 in the morning. Usually this turns into some sort of whining and crying fit until I can snap her back into the reality that nighttime is for sleeping.
So I tried to cut out her nap (in hopes to make her so exhausted she can do nothing but sleep all night). Yesterday I had her go to her room for quiet time (for her and me) during her usual nap time and she said she just wanted to lay in bed and read...she was asleep 5 minutes later. Today we had friends over and they ran around outside and she is now resting on the couch. Eyes open still, I told her she can't sleep even though she looks as if she could conk out at any moment. So I feel this approach may be a bit of torture since I know she still needs some sort of a nap.
Last night before bed we read our stories and then she sat on the edge of the bed, I asked her what she was doing and she said, "I need to wait until it gets dark so I can see the beautiful stars that God made." As we all know it doesn't get dark until close to 10:00 these days, so that is obviously not an option.
I am writing this to maybe take away some of the pure exhaustion I am feeling lately. And of course opening this up to any other advice on how to get her back to sleeping through the night. Did I mention she is also waking up between 5:30 and 6:00 for the day everyday?!
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towels over the windows and glow in the dark starts on the top of the walls. it doesn't get dark here until late as well, but logan's bed time is 8:30, so I just close up the curtains, do the story, kiss every stuffed animal in the bed with him (it's quite a few) kiss him, turn out the lights and he stares at his personal stars until he passes out, which is usually 15 minutes or less. We also cut out the nap mid day. I put a kitchen timer in with his quiet time, set it for an hour and when it rings, he can come out (unless he's gotta potty..lol ).
It's what we do, no garuntee it'll work for you, but it seems to work okay for us. for now....
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