Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Sleep Issues and Strategies

We gave the books to DD8 to "read" until she fell asleep as early as 18 months. I have a picture of her when she was 2 lying on her bed with a giant disney book open and over her face!
MON-DD8 has pretty much the same sleeping strategy as your daughter. During the school year it's in bed at 8:30.
After we close the door......what happens in DD's room, stays in DD's room.
I find it unproductive to police her sleeping. I figure she will go to sleep when she is sleepy.

Kimck - we have the same problem. Our DS4 goes to sleep in his own bed every night, but almost always by the middle of the night he's made the transfer to ours. Often this involves some loud wailing - it's a bit hard to tell, but I think he has nightmares; the good nights, though they are few, are when he comes in without waking us up. Lately we've had an added problem - horrible wailing fits in the middle of the night because something itches. He has some mild over-sensitivities in general - we often cut tags out of clothes or have to make sure the sock seam is in the right place - but this is well beyond. I confess that at 3:00 a.m. when DS is screaming his head off because some apparent mosquito bite itches (though I can't even see it!), and he is flailing about so badly that I can't even put the anti-itch cream on (can you tell such an event is fresh in my mind?) I sometimes revert to Kriston's strategy. Evil daddy. I try hard to avoid this response in general, but a person can only take so much. For some reason his uncanny ability to choose the worst part of my sleep cycle seems to play an important role in whether this response gets evoked. I'm probably giving him some awful Freudian fear of itches this way, but not having slept in 4 years is definitely getting to me. I am, by the way, a person who really needs both exercise and sleep. I used to get huge amounts of both, and now get rather less of each than is probably healthy for me.

BB

BBDad - your son's sensitivities remind me how we do have to go through quite a process before DS4 will in fact go to bed. He absolutely must have long sleeves/long pants jammies. His other usual requirement is socks, too, but i've somehow convinced him that none of them are clean so he won't sweat so horribly on these 90 degree days. Also, he complained about blankets being uncomfortable, and he would only sleep inside of a duvet cover (with quilt in it too), which left him incredibly sweaty. (When he was younger, he would sleep with a blanket footed sleeper, and threw off any and all loose blankets. So I think he has a need to be enclosed.) I finally found a silk sleeping bag liner (his "silky", which works great - he's enclosed in a little twin sized silk cacoon, and he's cool enough and happy. When I saw the itch thing, i thought "hmmm, maybe a silky would work." You could tell him he's completely (magically?) protected since he's all enclosed. Just a thought.

kimck - i've been "mean mommy" lately too - i can't stand this sticky weather!

St. Pauli: I think that our DS's itchiness doesn't have to do with clothes; or at least it didn't in this recent incident. I think he really did have some (very minor!) mosquito bite or something. It's just that he seems, especially in the middle of the night, to respond to it all out of proportion to its effect. It's hot and sticky here too, though, so maybe he's just out of sorts from that. Me too!

BB

My son has always had trouble falling asleep and he seems to need less sleep than I do. It helps a little when he reads, but he still hears things outside and wonders what could be making the noise, he can't get comfortable enough to fall asleep, and he doesn't like being alone in the dark and says he needs a night light, but then he puts the blanket over his head. He wants to talk to us and would keep this up for hours if we let him. If I get up in the middle of the night, he wakes up and is right there and wants to know if I am okay. Sleeping in the same tent with him at scout camp is not fun. It is either too hot or too cold. He can't tune out the sound of the coyotes howling or the sound of the wind in the trees and the thought that a spider or wasp might be in our tent. He sometimes dozes off at about 4 a.m. but then he is up with the others at the crack of dawn.

"Nighttime Parenting" by William Sears really changed my attitude about the whole CIO scenario. I had dabbled with Ferberizing my first baby, and I couldn't stand it. Attachment parenting just feels right for my family, though I know it isn't right for everyone.

Its amazing reading all the different ways we try to help get them to bed. We never really did it correct. DS5 almost 6 slept with us till about 4 years old. He is a hot sleeper, bed hogger, with nightmares. Finally we get him into his own bed (Bribed him with a Thomas the train bed) we still had the I am scared, or nightmare that brings him back to our bed. He never was a napper, but could sleep most the night. He still is always looking for reasons to sleep with us, somtimes we give in.
Now we have a full routine for the bed time, One of us must read to him,(It's better now, but from 1 on it was 6+ books a night) or he will read to us, when its time for bed, I have to turn on the invisable force field that protects him, then do a count down from 10 for a blast off into space as I turn off the lights. Then I have to lay down with him until he falls asleep. (I know bad dad) Have you ever tried sleeping in a Thomas the train bed when you are 6'1.

The good news last night he told me he could go to bed by himself without me lyning next to him. He said he was going to be 6 soon and needed to practice falling asleep alone.
What a surprise for me. 1st time, I hope it continues. I think Evillll dad would have been a lot eaiser.

It does for our family too. And I do agree, it isn't necessarily the right fit for everyone. I think kids can perceive whether or not you are comfortable with what your parenting choices. Maybe even more so for GT kids. It's just better to be consistent and know where your lines are. At the end of the day, whatever works for you!

My DH is actually more of a softy than I am. DD4
knows she needs to climb in on his side of the bed. And Edwin, your story gives us hope!

Edwin, your story gives us hope too. Our line, insofar as we have one, is that DS has to go to sleep in his own bed. This is not much of an accomplishment, however, since it involves DW sitting there with him until he's fallen asleep. Also, like you, we have a rather baroque bedtime ritual, though I confess it doesn't involve force shields. Maybe that's worth trying. I remember a time long ago when I had the opinion that he should probably sleep in his own bed through the night, but it's long since stopped seeming worth the effort. No method that seemed at all humane had any effect. (Ferberizing seemed to me barbaric, though I can imagine that it works well if you have the fortitude to stick with it.)

For the most part, we've learned to be at peace with our situation. Bed-hog issues don't bother me too much since it's pretty easy to move him over, and I'm even pretty unflappable about getting kicked in the ribs; the massive head butt to the first thoracic vertebra that I received a few nights ago did get me worrying a bit about pulmonary function, but it seems to have worked itself out more or less. Evil dad comes out mostly under the extreme stress associated with loud shrieking in the middle of the night that has no apparent cause. Even then he is limited to quiet but firm words of dissuasion. But that seems to be effective. I do worry about the Freudian issues related to itching, though.

BB

Wow... we must have touched a nerve here. Lots of posts here!!

My DS8 didn't sleep through the night until after he was 4. He was a baby who would catnap for 20 minutes and then be off for the races again. We tried the ferberizing thing once. (an only once!) He screamed for over an hour until he was so upset that he puked everywhere. He literally got so angry over the injustice of being left to cry it out that he would not calm down for at least an hour or two afterwards. (I think he was about 2 at the time).

My only strategy for getting him to sleep for either naps or bedtime was to read to him. By the time he was 18 months, I would pick out the longest, most boring books from the library (books with over 100 words per page!) and then read as quietly as possible while lying down in bed with him. It would usually take an hour of reading in the afternoon, and an hour of reading at night, for him to fall asleep. He was just way too mesmerized by even boring stories to fall asleep. I would quite often read myself to sleep, only to have him shake me and yell for me to keep reading.

The best advice that I ever received about raising kids was from a mom down the street. She said that her little guy got more and more wound up the more exhausted he was. That described by son to a tee. His mind starts racing the more tired he is. He also has more nightmares if he goes to bed very late. My DS hits this small window of sleepiness after dinner, around 7:30 at night, every night. We have to catch it then, or he gets a second wind and will be up all night long. So even at the age of eight, we have an the hour of reading, followed by an early bed time of 8 pm. He may lay in bed for 30 minutes and think about things, but he falls asleep fairly quickly.

As a side note ... If we are up late for some reason (scout, family or friends), and he is exhausted when he goes to bed, I know that it will be a terrible night. He just can't seem to get into a deep, restful sleep when he is tired. He will also unfailingly wake up at some ungodly early time, instead of sleeping in. (so he will short change it on both ends). Interestingly enough, I have the same problems. I catch a second wind if I stay up too late. And if I go to sleep exhausted, I rarely have a deep and restful sleep.