Sleep
January 19th, 2012You know, for someone who has a kid with sleep problems, I have made some dumb decisions about said kid’s evening activities. On Wednesdays she has epic cheerleading practice from 5:45 to 9:00 pm and doesn’t get home until 9:20 or so. She’s always hungry and thirsty and totally hyped up from exercising for three hours so she can’t sleep. Last night she was still awake at 11:30 when we turned off the lights and Tim had to go in a lie down with her. It was his “turn.”
Yes, we still have to take turns dealing with a sleepless child. Ten years after the child was born. IT DOESN’T GET BETTER, SUCKERS.
I am kind of on the same wavelength as Leelo who just said, “Fuck this,” and took her kid’s “dummy” (is that New Zealand/Australia/England for “pacifier?” I forget where you’re from. I can’t DO EVERYTHING.) and dealt with him crying for four days straight.
Tim, however, is mortally afraid to just start weaning her off this mess. I told him to go out of town for four days and I’d take care of this shit and he looked askance at me and I’m like, YOU’RE the one who loses his temper, not me. Except for that time I told her I’d lock her out of the house if she came out of her room one more time. Heh?
I know I harp on this a lot. I acknowledge your patience in listening to my complaints for the 40000000th time. The thing is: for me, this sleeping issue is at the root of everything about my relationship with Holly. Tim claims he doesn’t feel that way, but for example. Holly is also really picky about food now. She used to eat anything, but over the past few years, she has become impossible. She’s not as bad as Elliot was, but she is more irritating because Elliot truly didn’t like the tastes and textures of certain foods. She likes things but won’t eat them on general principle. For instance, she won’t eat pizza. This is a capital offense to begin with because everybody likes pizza, for the love of god (except the picky fucks out there who are getting ready to leave a comment that THEY DON’T). Even Elliot liked pizza; he was just picky about what kind. Holly has Ideas about food. She may like the taste of chocolate soy milk, for instance, but will not drink it because it’s made of soy! Ewwww!
The other night Tim and I had soy burgers on the menu. I was all, “She’s not going to eat this. Don’t even try!” but he was determined to try to sneak it past her.
He assembled it and put cheese all over it and she ate about a third of it then said, “Wait, this doesn’t taste like hamburger. Is this a chicken patty?? I don’t like chicken patties!”
Okay, first of all? You like chicken nuggets, so how can you not like chicken patties and second, it’s not a chicken patty and THIRD YOU ALREADY ATE IT SO YOU OBVIOUSLY LIKE IT WELL ENOUGH.
She put it down and didn’t take another bite. Normally I wouldn’t care, but I was coming off about four nights worth of sleeping nonsense and was in no mood. After it became apparent she wasn’t going to eat any more of it, I took the sandwich from her and sawed off the part that had her bite marks on it so I could finish it because I fucking love soy patties and put the little strip I cut off on her plate and said, “Eat this.”
She sat at her place for a while, dawdling over her French fries and her apples and avoiding touching the piece of sandwich. I started cleaning up and every time I watched her picking at her plate, I saw red and thought, “She won’t sleep at night and she’s pulling this shit too?” I remarked, “You have to finish that sandwich piece before you can leave the table,” and she whined “I know!” and my unspoken thoughs were so resentful and insulting and all about her not sleeping at night. Just like couples who fight and it always comes back to the guy not doing enough around the house, everything, from leaving her shoes out to eschewing pizza, always comes back to bedtime for me.
My inner monologue stopped when Tim completely lost his shit and yelled, “EAT IT. NOW!” and she burst into tears and got dramatic and acted like she was having to choke down this vomitous mass of delicious soy patty that she’d eaten earlier without problem.
The other night we were driving to dance class and Holly declared she didn’t want to attend KU; she wanted to go to college out of state (Jesus God, do ALL kids say this? Is there some memo that goes out?) and I snarked, “Well, you can’t because I can’t fly in every night to lie down in your dorm room with you.”
That was a really mean thing to say, and I don’t think she heard me, but god damn.
Your blog is my favorite blog of all time.
The “I’m going to college out of state” thing seems to be a passive-agressive way to air their little kiddie grievances. Like FUCK THIS, I’m OUT. Of course, I actually DID go to college out of state, so. It was hardly an idol threat.
My One True Issue in my relationship with Ava is her temper. I don’t get it, I have no sympathy for it, and it stresses me out. Hold your shit together, FTLOG. If I were raising her to be a proper Midwestern Emotional Cripple this wouldn’t be happening.
Instead, I WENT TO COLLEGE OUT OF STATE.
Dude. Come and live at my house to witness the DRAMA over mealtimes. I try so hard to funnel my rage down into a manageable, suppressed ball but I admit I’m not always successful. Take for instance, Christmas day. I made the usual spread – turkey etc and my previously-shared Brussel sprouts recipe. Now. I know Brussel sprouts are a big ask for 90% of adults, and we all know kids are pernickety little fucks, but I was all “Oooh chile, you gon’ EAT.”
My middle child (daughter, 5) started scowling. Fortified with mimosas I chirped “now come on! If you eat it up you can open your presents!” She throws this dark look at me and shoved the sprouts off her plate and onto the table. The uncharitable thoughts I had, LORD. Just revoke my mothering liscence. Anyway, so then it was this giant fucking throw down power struggle. Christmas presents were hanging in the balance, which, come on! Good motivator! She refused.
Eventually I lost my cool, shouted about this and that, then stuffed the sprouts in my mouth myself. And let her open her presents anyway.
Total failure to teach daughter consequences. That’s what I got for Christmas. You’re not alone on wild fluctuations in resolve, is my point.
Ps – Glasgow
I’ve got a going-on-12 year old who is rapidly getting too tall to continue ordering off the kiddie menu and I don’t know what we’re going to do because her food tastes are still completely toddlerific. Mac and cheese. Cheese pizza. Plain hamburgers.
Anyway, please say something about Douche and do not take the high road.
One more thing – don’t feel bad for being normal. Parenting is hard. I don’t believe any parent who claims to have never muttered a nasty comment. We’ve all done it. None of us feel too great about it. But come one, no one knows how to push one’s buttons like one’s progeny. It doesn’t help that (at least for me), I feel like I’ve sacrificed a lot to raise these three little buggers and therefore they owe me good behaviour. So, I’ll frequently think things like “holy shit, I do EVERYTHING for you and you won’t even eat dinner/stop coming into my bed at night/clean up your mess/______”. You get the picture. It’s not logical because kids aren’t fully functioning, reasonable adults.
I’m rambling a bit now. Sorry!
I can’t EVEN imagine dealing with the not falling asleep forever thing..I’m blessed with kids who go the fuck to bed when they’re tired. They WILL drive me to tears tearing up the kitchen ..to the point of leaving garbage all over a counter with a garbage can BELOW it..like an arm sweep would have done it. I’ve lost my mind over it so much that I can’t make sense when addressing it anymore..I KNEW I should have followed thru on cutting off the head of the first kid to leave food out after I cleaned up in Ought 4 ….
You have my utmost sympathy ..sleep issues are killer.
I was not the perfect parent … who is?
But my daughters are adults now, and I will say that the one thing I totally did right was to NEVER get into it over food.
We didn’t keep junk food in the house. I never cared whether they ate their dinner. If they didn’t like what we were having, they could fix something (and clean up afterward) they wanted. If they were hungry, they ate. If they weren’t, they didn’t. Nobody ever had to take so many bites or try anything they didn’t want to. And yes, they often seemed to eat only stuff they wanted – older daughter had Eggo waffles and peanut butter for breakfast every day for probably five years in a row. Until she had a nutrition class freshman year and heard from a teacher that Eggo waffles suck.
My younger daughter absolutely LOVED cheesecake. It was her idea of the best treat in the world. It was a rare occurrence that we ever had cheesecake … usually on a birthday or some other special occasion. I remember when she was about 12, and we went out to dinner for her birthday. After the meal, the big slice of cheesecake arrived, and she was quite happy. She had about three bites and then stopped. I asked her what’s wrong, don’t you like it? She looked at me quizzically, and said she loved it, but she was full. The idea of continuing to eat when she was full was foreign to her. Unlike me – who will keep stuffing my face with something I like even when my stomach is about to burst.
Both girls are healthy; neither has any sort of weight issues, and neither is much of a fast/junk food aficionado … unlike me, who had to “take three bites” and “no dessert until your plate is clean,” and a myriad of other stupid food rules growing up. And who can barely stand to throw away any leftover food, even if I am stuffed.
I don’t usually try to give advice, and especially not parenting advice, but I think getting into food wars is a big mistake. It’s a set-up for power plays on both sides. It’s a rare kid who will starve if there is only nutritious stuff available.
As usual I offer no advice at all about sleeping issues because that’s just asking karma to bite me in the ass. However, I have so much less tolerance for all of the usual kid shit when I don’t sleep as much or as well as I’d like. OK, I’ve got two kids and, therefore, haven’t slept as much or as well as I’d REALLY like in 9+ years, but within the parameters of the new normal, I have no patience when not decently rested. For example, the other night I totally lost it with my 9 YO over practicing the god damned recorder. I don’t give a shit about the recorder. I didn’t want him to do it. But he insisted we sign him up to take it in music and now we are stuck with this stupid thing until June and you’d think making him practice it was like shoving bamboo up his fingernails. I totally lost my shit and shouted at him about it the other day because sometimes, evidently, I just cannot manage to be calm and rational about kids’ crap.
Dude. The sleep issues suck ass when you have little kids. I can’t even imagine The Rage I’d feel if I was still dealing with it 10 or 11 years later. No shit you’re resentful. Who wouldn’t be?
My older daughter had a friend in pre-school who had FOOD ISSUES – her mother warned me, but the kid ate everything at my house. And I lived through years of my father yelling at me to finish eating … years, and I didn’t want to be that parent, either. When my girls refused to eat what I gave them (and I only gave them stuff they liked) I would say to them”Good, more for me” and then eat it. I was always terrified that they would develop FOOD ISSUES so I totally downplayed it. As for going to sleep, my kids were great, but I myself was a whiny brat. I still have sleep issues (or isit SLEEP ISSUES?), I just grew into keeping it to myself.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_the_Fuck_to_Sleep
Look up the YouTube clip of Samuel Jackson reading this. Awesome. My friend gave me this book for Christmas.
I probably said this to you before, but I think it bears repeating: It’s not about laying down with her. It’s about HAVING to lay down with her. And, more to the point, it’s about RESENTING having to lay down with her.
I still lay down with N (who turns 11 next week) every other night, because like you, my husband and I also take turns. But the difference is, N CAN go to sleep without me laying down with him–and does so on my husband’s nights. (My husband and N have a different ritual that involves a light saber and a lot of giggling, but no laying down, because hubby don’t play that.) If I’m having a crisis or I’m out of the house when it’s his bedtime, he can handle going to sleep on his own, though he gets sad and it makes me feel guilty. Also? He falls asleep within a minute or two after I say to settle down (after we’ve read and snuggled and talked). It’s actually something I look FORWARD to, rather than something that ruins my night.
BUT, If I were in your shoes, with the issues you’re facing, I’d feel exactly the way you do (and react in exactly the same way, with everything she did that was slightly annoying leading to anger over the bedtime issue). Can you have a straightforward, “you know, Holly, every night that we go through this, I get angrier and angrier at you, and it’s not good for you OR for me” talk? Tell her that you probably wouldn’t be getting all Mommy Dearest at her about soy patties if the sleep issues weren’t making you so upset in the first place? If she could see the cause and effect, the way it’s not just about HER sleep issues, but what it’s doing to you…? Can you come up with a less obnoxious bedtime routine? Are there compromises she can try? That you could handle?
I know, I know. You’ve tried; you’ve considered. I just need to make suggestions, because I feel so badly for you, even though I know that there’s nothing I can suggest that you haven’t already turned over in your head. Sorry. I hope it gets better…soon.
Oh Jane. I hate to tell you this but Jackie had her sleep issues through most of high school. I KNOW! Once I got to the fuck this stage and stopped arguing with her, my main priority was that MY sleep was not disturbed. So if she had to come sleep on my floor or whatever, FINE, but don’t wake me up. That at least made it tolerable. And as I’ve said, she’s now in her 20s and well-adjusted, happy, normal, nice, etc., and sleeps wherever.
I laughed out loud at your snark about flying to her dorm room. I leveled quite a few nasty shots at Jackie too over the years. She survived.
I’ve deleted two long posts full of assvice, and am going to say instead, I think TC’s idea is a good one. Talk to her. Tell her what’s going on with you, and ask her if she has any suggestions. If she doesn’t, she gets to be in control of her own bedtime, but she can’t wake you guys up. Sometimes, putting a kid in control of a problem works. Good luck. I can’t even imagine still dealing with this.
Oh, and I meant to say, Danny used to decide he no longer liked a food in the time between placing his order and receiving it. Drove me crazy. He is now the least picky of my kids, and asks me all the time why I don’t cook more different foods and try new things. Argh…
The world is a scary place for a 10 yr old. All the things on TV and the news. It is awful to be afraid.
I think the idea of her coming to your room and sleeping on the floor is the best idea. You should not change your own sleeping place.
Some things the doctors suggested for my grandson that has medical induced sleep issues.
Melatonin…..so many of my grandsons doctors (he is 3) suggested this and there has been a lot of research on how safe it was for kids as young as my grandson. It certainly works wonders, he was asleep in 5 to 10 min. but we felt unsure and only gave it to him for a couple of weeks.
Other things that would be worth a try.
Noise Machines: Many adults have them, they help us fall asleep. They play a variety of soothing sounds, which have been proven to make it a bit easier for kids to fall to sleep.
Night Lights: When I was a kid a night light was all I needed.
Alarm clock: One with the LED numbers. It puts out a little light and they can check the time.
Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Extra Tea: I use this and it works great for me and is supposed to be a safe herb for kids too.
Good luck on finding a solution
Gawd, I’m glad I don’t have kids.
Peggy is a LOT more helpful than I am…
OMG my head would spin if my kids pulled the no sleep thing. Just reading this stressed me out for you. I imagine I would totally lose my shit and any hope of winning the elusive ‘Best Parent’ award.
The food thing made me laugh a little. I remember my mother was HELL BENT I was going to eat and eventually love green beans. I had to sit for what I recall as HOURS silently, determined I was never going to eat those fucking green beans. And I didn’t. Oh the tales of how she wanted to kill me.
Anyway. I never make my kids eat. They seem to be OK and will try a variety of things, but I suppose I make it easy on them. We never serve green beans.
I could have written this post!
I am in the same boat with my eight year old who won’t sleep in his room and insists on sleeping in my bed. I have Fibromyalgia and I can barely stand to have my hubby in the same bed, much less a 4’11” hundred pound eight year old who kicks me in the kidneys all night. Oh honey the resentment-I know it all too well! I mean there are days I looked for boarding schools to send him to (none will take an 8 year old). The resentment permeates every single interaction with everyone, especially the child, all day long. It really becomes a wedge between you and your child, or at least it did for me.
We are working on it, I have taken away the Wii & XBox(he will get them back when he sleeps in his room). I finally got him out of my bed and he’s sleeping on the floor in my room(you have no idea how much better this is for me). I feel like this is a control issue with us, nothing more, but I’m not going to let him win. Good luck with whatever you decide.
You know I feel your pain. We’ve finally stopped laying with melody, but it began with this 15 minute “check” routine. I’m now up to having to check on her every 45 minutes. Some nights she’s asleep, some nights she come out 30 times with different complaints. I often wonder if she’ll ever get to sleep on her own. Oh, and some nights she sleepwalks! Ugh!
I’m with the others who say your sleep is more important at this stage. If she can’t go to sleep herself, I’d welcome her on the floor of your bedroom – without waking you or Paco.
The rule in our house is that she (age 14) can do whatever she wants (except for anything with a screen) as long as she doesn’t disturb anyone else. This started when she was 9. She’s allowed to get herself water but nothing to eat.
She slept in our bed until age 9. We laid down with her until age 10.
We had sleep issues with both our kids….bad. Sleepwalking and wetting the bed. Bad dreams and then diving into our bed. Sleeping on the floor next to our bed. Playing musical beds all night long because as soon as one would get settled, the other came into our room and one of us went back with them……ad nauseum. Bad for the sex life, too….heh.
If I recall, it was all ok once they hit jr. high. But, I feel for you guys because it’s hell going through it. It does get better but that doesn’t help when you have to go through it, I know.
We had the food issues with our daughter. Too picky (good lord, nothing green could touch her plate) but it just wasn’t worth the butting of heads so we just let her eat (within reason) what she wanted to. A meal of nothing but cottage cheese and macaroni and cheese? Fine. I refused to cook separate meals for everyone so what was there was the meal for the night.
I lipped off and said something mean to my daughter the other day on the phone because I was worried about her impending driving trip to another city in the snow and ice and I get mean when I’m worried. We all have done it so don’t stew about your remark to Holly. Hey! We moms are human and have feelings and get aggravated, too!
i more than agree with the people who said do not fight over food. just don’t or before you know it the sleep issues will be joined by food issues. give her a daily vitiman and if she won’t eat what you prepare than cereal or something she can do are always there. as for the sleep.. i think you and tim need to decide what to do and do it..with the food too… you have to be on the same page about major shit like that or she will sense the division and then you have no chance. and stop judging yourself by what she does. i do the same with connor..like everything he does reflects on me as a person so i get way to involved with his shit. so follow the advice i can’t follow myself.. stop getting so mad at shit that is really isn’t up to you to control. her sleep is on her.. if she can’t sleep and needs to be on the floor..oh well.. obviously this is something that lots of others are going thru. stop the food wars before they get out of hand and just let it go.. and tell me if any of that works because ‘letting it go’ is really hard and i haven’t been real successful at it myself.
Honestly? It sounds like she needs to cut way back on her activities. We have a one-activity minimum per school-age child (out of school, that is — band doesn’t count) because that is ALL THEIR BODIES CAN HANDLE at this age! (Reassess as teenagerhood arrives — they seem to develop more stamina.) I, personally, as a 37-year-old woman, have trouble sleeping when I’m doing too much at night. This can’t be that unusual. I hope things improve soon.
And yes, I would love to hear your assessment of the Dooce situation. I have a love/hate relationship with Dooce (and let me emphasise that it is *I* that has this relationship; on her part there is no relationship whatsoever), but still sad re latest turn of events. Also, thankful for my husband.
Oops, that should have read “one-activity MAXIMUM”, but you probably inferred this.
I’ve been giving my five-year-old a half-dose of liquid melatonin every night an hour before bedtime since September, and it is wonderful. It makes the wheels in his little brain stop spinning so he can just sleep. We call it his ” sleepy vitamin,” and he asks for it, and asks to go to sleep now–where before we’d find him playing Legos in bed at nearly midnight. Our pediatrician is on board, and I heard about it from a teacher. You should try it, as part of a bedtime makeover.
I’m all for telling her she can’t go to the college she wants cos you won’t be there to sleep with her. She might start to look at her behaviour and its future ramifications.
Yes I was the bitch mother from hell.
And food? No healthy kid will starve.
Your sleep … most important.
PS … love Danks’ comment about her daughter sleeping “wherever”!!
Reading your entries about Holly’s bedtime problems, really make me want to take care of the problems we are having around Klara’s (soon 5 yrs) bedtime. We did not make the transition from crib to big-girl-bed well at all! We also take turns staying in bed with her until she falls asleep and half the time that parent doesn’t make it down stairs again. Half the time I wake up in the middle of the night really feeling the consequense of not having brushed my teeth! Yuck!
I wonder if it would help to talk with her, and then start a routine where you checked on her every 3 minutes, 5 minutes, etc. for a week. It would be a week of hell for all concerned but it might be worth a try. I would be resentful too if I had to do that every night…or every other night, whatever. I know you have already tried so many things to help her fall asleep. It’s a tough issue.
I think we might be raising the same child.
Jane, I would be so bitter, too, that I’d say snide things to my child. It’s not a proud moment, you know, admitting that, but sleep deprivation will do that to you.
I was a child who had sleep issues, and I became an adult who, if I don’t keep things on track, who also has sleep issues. My daughter, who is 9 years old, used to have sleep issues, too. The worst of it was before school started this year. Long story short, she developed a habit of sleeping in my room and wasn’t receptive to the idea of sleeping in her own room again (and in either room, she would stay awake far too late and wake entirely tooooo early for someone who went to sleep that late), so it was Bedtime BootCamp all up in our house. Good Lord, it was awful. “Oh, you won’t go to sleep at 9, child? Here’s your new bedtime- 7! Let’s see if you can figure out this sleep thing before I change it to 5pm, kid!” She retrained (with my help) herself to sleep like a normal child should, in her own bed… and I re-set her bedtime each night, depending on her tiredness and mood… Usually, lately, she’s in bed by 8:30, lights out, no sounds by 8:45, and usually sleeping before 9pm. Since she is like her mother, and requires decent sleep and thrives on routine, this is how we operate.
This has probably been said multiple times up above, but……I too had a child that slept on our floor until she was 9 or 10. And she somehow just……….got over it. But my point is, I also shouted some very mean things to her in the heat of the moment. Quite a few times probably. She is 16 now, sleeps like a rock, and is my most loving kid. Holly will remember all you did for her, and forget the words thrown in anger.
I know Holly responded very well to bribery with the messy chair. Would that work for the bedtime issues? I assume you’ve already tried it or her issues are much greater, but I’m a nosy commenter who must butt in.
IANAP but I can’t help myself…
Rebecca nailed it. Holly has too many extracurricular activities going on. Sit down with her and have her choose one and only one. Skating, cheering, dance…this is all too much.
Friends of ours have two daughters who were actively involved in various hobbies. The dad says that when he made them each dial it down to one, the stress level in the whole household became MUCH more manageable. There weren’t sleep issues, AFAIK, just general stress and angst.
I bow to the advice of experienced parents commenting here so, I must ask: How in Hell did your marriage survive having your kids sleep in your bed/room with you for years on end?
I can’t speak for Jane, but for me, the relationship adjusts to the inconvenience. Of course, we are now divorced so draw what conclusions you will! To be fair, that was down to all kinds of other shit but yeah. As for having a kid in the bed, my ex used to mutter his share of “fuck’s sake”‘s and occasionally lob a helpful “WHY DON’T YOU TAKE CARE OF THIS?!” I guess because when you’re in the thick of it, there doesn’t seem a way out so you just deal. Fun times, I tell you what.
Man oh man, I do NOT miss that shit. The college-out-of-state thing made me laugh. One time, when my older daughter was 16 years old and being a complete bitch about everything, she told me that she planned on going to college IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY because, and I quote, “I don’t really have any ties to this area.” After I dropped her off wherever I was taking her, I went to a coffee shop and wept into my latte.
I have no advice. My kids were lazy and never wanted to do any activities. We stayed home and played Polly Pockets.
If it were my kid I think I’d march his happy ass to a therapist and have someone else besides me tell him that at his age he needed to be sleeping on his own. And have a therapist talk to him about it as this is his problem not mine.
He made it mine by insisting I lay down and sleep with him.
Does that make sense?
Seriously, have none of her girlfriends explained the joy of masturbation to her yet? But would that get her to sleep alone or just spend more time in a locked bathroom?
It’s not bribery, it’s an actual psychological process called behavioral therapy. Ever hear of the Skinner box? You can retrain rats, kids, just about everything except nicotine addiction. Western Michigan U is one of the best schools that does studies, you can look for works from them for help. The rewards system works great as you already know.
The food thing is more complicated, could be rebellion, gaming, allergies or simply BS. From her pix, can’t imagine a healthier looking (or prettier) kid (and she sees a doc so if there was any problem, you would know.) It seems to me that everybody has food issues just not the same issues. Was stunned to deal with 2 lawyers and a psychiatrist in NYC picking a dinner site meeting for Sat night, and nobody with enough juice to get reservations anywhere great. then see my friend’s 3 year old eating sushi and another kid who will only eat while food. And the diets. Conclusion – we’re all nutz!