Sunday, August 29, 2010

Sleep

I have posted many, many times I am sure about sleep issues in our house (and I don't feel like going back through the archives and finding those posts).

Old sleep issues seemed to have been resolved, only for new ones to rear their ugly heads.

Ashley has always, always been a great sleeper once she decided at 18 months to sleep through the night. We had some hiccups along the way, but at least since she was in preschool she would go to bed at night and be asleep before her head hit the pillow. And she would stay that way until morning, although sometimes that morning was a little earlier than I wanted.

But lately, it's a different story. I don't know what's up with her. She is having trouble falling asleep. I often go upstairs after I put the girls to bed to find her up walking around. And yes, part of the problem is that Audrey is up walking around, but I will get to that in a minute. A few nights ago, it was after 10 before she finally fell asleep. And she is waking up in the middle of the night and doing God knows what but every morning I find her bedroom door open. By Friday, she is so tired she's toast.

Audrey just needs to not nap at school. She naps, she doesn't fall asleep until late, then is tired, then naps again at school. The weekends are great because she falls right to sleep. I can't do anything about it though. I am not going to tell her teachers to keep her awake, that's not her job. She is obviously tired because she isn't falling asleep until late, so it's just a vicious cycle. One more year and she's off to kindergarten and no naps.

So any suggestions for Ashley would be helpful. I feel so bad when I have to wake her up in the morning when I know she is tired. Maybe it's an age thing?

2 comments:

VetTekky said...

Hello there! My daughter is 5 and just started kindergarten. She always has a really difficult time falling asleep. She is up kicking the walls as I write this, actually. I don't know if this would help but I usually let her come out once or twice with the usual excuses. I forgot to say goodnight to the fish, or I'm thirsty. But after a few times I go into robot mode. Every time she walks out, regardless of what she wants, I simply say "go to bed." She whines and prolly comes out a few more times but after 10 or 15 minutes she gives up and goes to sleep. Maybe if you repeatedly go into her room and tell her to go to bed eventually she will get tired of hearing you say it and go to bed.
It's worth a shot, yeah?

Jaki said...

I read an article recently on babycenter about kids that normally sleep well having trouble when they are in first or second grade because they are doing so much more in school and their thoughts keep them awake or they are worried about something...I tried to find the article but couldn't...anyway..I guess just know that it's normal. I did find this article..maybe it will help...http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,8149,00.html