Bedtime Battles

Bedtime continues to be a major struggle.

The weighted blanket was a fail. If I put it down by his feet, it seems to help during sleep, something to press against, but he doesn't even want it on his bed.

On Monday, Memorial Day, Monster went to bed by himself and fell asleep by himself. Yea! But, alas, it was a fluke and has yet to be repeated. The best we can figure out, he doesn't want to go to school. He is very much done! (Not that I blame the little guy, it's been a long, tough year) So, in his mind, it seems like if he doesn't go to sleep, school won't ever happen. Being the mean and cruel parents we are, Mr and I always make him go to school the next day.

We changed up his bedtime, again, a few weeks ago. Instead of a movie at bedtime (after the 666th viewing of Escape to Witch Mountain), he gets to play with an iPhone/iPod Touch for 5-10 minutes in his bed (by himself). Afterwards, we say goodnight, turn out the light and let him try and go to sleep by himself. 3 weeks of no luck-we eventually have to go in and lay with him-we had a success on Memorial Day. I think it took him about 20 minutes or so, but Mr. had the resolve to let Monster work through things on his own. Every night since, Monster gets up and either starts jumping on the beds, sings, or just comes out looking for us. We end up in the room with him, again, and he proceeds to try everything he can think of to stay awake, including trying to provoke us to the point of yelling (something, I, unfortunately, with an embarrassing frequency).

He shouldn't have been able to fall asleep on Monday. We went to 6 Flags, got home late and he was amped and over-tired. Usually a recipe for a long night for Mr and I. So what was different? The only things I can think of are he got to spend a lot of time with me and Mr (all day at 6 flags) and he may have thought he was done with school (since it was Monday and he didn't go to school).

We have three more weeks of school, but we are going to try an experiment tonight by letting him know, emphatically, that tomorrow is a "home day" and there would be no school. Maybe that will be what it takes, or maybe not. Another thing that concerns me is that we praised him for being "a big boy". I think he doesn't want to be a big boy. He often tells me he is a baby. Can't blame him for that, growing up can be a big pain, especially if it means he has to be more in control with more responsibilities.

We aren't giving up, though. We will keep trying different things. Keep trying to let him work things out on his own and keep crossing our fingers.