On the evening before my 43rd birthday last Thursday, Niko screamed at me for almost 2 hours. He wanted a piece of yarn to play with and he wanted his iPad while he ate dinner and I said NO! Eventually, I did breakdown and gave him a small piece yarn, but that actually made it worse because he wanted a longer piece. Taking his iPad away is always a struggle. I did offer music on his iPad, but he wanted videos. Eventually, I won that one; mainly, because he wanted to eat dinner. Once Nina and I finally got him tucked in his bed for sleeping, both of us were happy to enjoy some quiet-time; me downstairs and Nina upstairs.
While I was downstairs, I cleaned the kitchen, scooped kitty litter, took the trash out, ate dinner, ordered a new HP laptop, and just sat on the sofa in a relaxed coma! I did join Nina about 45 minutes later in the bedroom and was asleep by 9 pm.
But, my sleep was very short as I have an alarm on my iWatch for 10:30 pm. At that time, I have to get Niko up and make him pee and, he screamed at me for about 15 minutes, but he did pee! He screams because he is awake and doesn’t want to be. Hey, I am the same way, but I don’t scream. My next alarm is 2 am and for that one, he gets up and pees with no screaming and it takes less than 5 minutes. But, when I was tucking him at that time, I told him it was my birthday and I asked for a kiss and I got a kiss!
Both Nina and I were off on Thursday and I had one request from her. I wanted to sleep in! Niko did wake me up with another birthday kiss at 7:45 am, but I was happy to be able to stay in bed until 8:30 am.
For breakfast, I was made an omelette with ham and onions with a side of turkey bacon. Afterward, we took a family walk; well, Nina and I walked and Niko got pushed in the stroller.
For lunch, I ordered a lot of Chinese food for the three of us and my parents picked it up and delivered it to us. It ‘s nice to see my parents and I can’t wait to be able to give them a hug and a kiss. Right now, they do get out of the car to see me and especially Niko, but we all keep our distance. Afterward, Niko and I played with the sprinkler in the backyard, ate some more Chinese food, ate some chocolate pudding, and had a pillow party in his bedroom.
When Niko wants something specific to eat, he will ask and after our Chinese food got delivered, he kept asking for bagels. I told him we didn’t have any, but that maybe we can go on a bagel hunt over the weekend.
All that food and play made me sleepy, so I asked Nina if I could take a short nap and she allowed me! Yes, Niko came in the bedroom a few times to check on me and after about 45 minutes, he came in one final time to wake me up! Niko stopped napping last October and when he did nap, Nina and I would nap also.
It’s funny that Niko behaves differently and does things that he doesn’t do with mom when it’s me and him. Like, when I give him a bath, he lets me shave and shower while he plays in the bathtub. Now, I can see him in the bathtub when I am showering and I also talk to him. I think he enjoys the freedom. Sometimes, he will even lay down at the entrance of our closet with some toys, food, drinks, and his iPad while I take a shower. That is what Niko and I do almost every evening before dinner while Nina is working.
For dinner, we ate more Chinese food and had more chocolate pudding. He was still asking for bagels!
For Niko’s night-time, we have a set routine of things we do. But, for the past several weeks, everything is fine until it’s time for him to actually get into bed and get tucked in by us. He makes a simple task extremely complicated and very stressful on both Nina and I. I am very open for any suggestions! Please!
After an hour of screaming at us on Thursday night and us trying to get him in his bed, my birthday gift finally arrived from Nina. I asked a screaming Niko if he was waiting for it. He said yes. He likes to open our mail and packages. He gets his stool and a toy that will help open it. The package was a delivery of more food from a Jewish delicatessen in Houston that we always eat at when we go on a cruise. It was Matzah ball soup and bagels! Poor Niko, he thought my parents were delivering it and that is why he wanted bagels. Well, he got a little bite of one bagel and then we went back upstairs, he was ready for sleeping with no screaming. That was by far one of the hardest evenings I have had with him in a long time.
During his screaming fest on Thursday, I texted my parents to ask them to pick up fresh bagels for us and they did. I told Niko that we can take a drive to see them and pick them up on Saturday.
On Friday night, Nina and I tried a new approach for Niko’s nighttime. We moved bedtime to 30 minutes later. Niko told us that the reasons he doesn’t want to go to sleep is because he is playful and wants more food and drink. To solve that, I made sure he had a big dinner and brought up milk and water and we played a little bit upstairs before bed. Nina also made up a new game with him to run races and have an obstacle course during the day to get out some of the extra wiggles. He was tired after all the running! The biggest thing we added was positive reinforcement with a reward chart and he could see it on the wall right outside his room. The way it works is if he has a good evening, the next morning he gets something special for breakfast, after 7 days, he gets something a little bigger, and after 30 days, he gets a huge toy. Well, I am pleased to tell you that it worked on Friday night and we had chocolate pancakes on Saturday morning.
On Saturday night, the new approach didn’t work. Everything was going really good until it was time to tuck him in and say goodnight. It took 2 hours to finally get him in his bed for sleeping. During that 2 hours, he kept coming out of his room, kept turning his lights on, went downstairs, jumped on the upstairs sofa, jumped on the upstairs chair, and kept laughing like it was a game. Ignoring him didn’t work because I had to follow him closely so he couldn’t hurt himself. I kept telling him that if he isn’t sleepy, you still need to stay in your room; that also didn’t work. I even offered to play with him for a few minutes in his bed and then we can go to sleep; the playing worked, but as soon as I left him, he came out the bedroom. What did work, was Nina and I laying down with him in his bed for a few minutes; so he could’t escape! That got him to relax and a few minutes later, I was finally able to put his blankets on. Wow! That was another really hard night! By that time, it was almost time for my 10:30 pm pee alarm with Niko, so I skipped it.
I really hope tonight is good. I don’t like when this happens and am glad that I am working from home and I haven’t had to do any schoolwork. My second term starts on Friday and I can’t be wasting time to get him to to go to sleep when that starts.
