For Niko’s night-time, we have always had a set routine of things we do. But, a new phase has emerged and the routine needs a lot of tweaking. Everything is fine until it’s time for him to actually get into bed and get tucked in by us; basically, he doesn’t want to go to sleep. He makes a simple task extremely complicated and very stressful on both Nina and I. It just started happening very recently out of nowhere. Before this, he had absolutely no issues and was super easy to tuck in and sleep!
We are trying different approaches which we started on Friday, April 24th to see what works and what doesn’t. Friday went well, Saturday was bad, Sunday went well, Monday went bad, Tuesday went bad, Wednesday went bad, Thursday went OK, Friday went bad, and last night went bad (and it was his birthday yesterday). Positive reinforcement didn’t work, a later bedtime didn’t work, taking things away from didn’t work, and playing with him before bed didn’t work. When he has a bad night, he doesn’t get anything special; mainly treats, throughout the day.
It was his 4th birthday yesterday and even though he had a bad night, we couldn’t justify not giving him gifts and a cake; which he really enjoyed both. The three of us had a wonderful day of playing and celebrating. Everything was fantastic until it came to bed; it took me an hour to get him tucked in and sleeping!
Personally, I am trying my best to remain calm and I think I am doing a good job; despite the craziness. Taking care of myself is very important and when I chase him in the evenings, I can feel my heart beating really fast and I don’t want anything to happen to me. Yes, I am absolutely exhausted; I have been working full-time from home for almost 3 weeks and I wake up twice a night to get Niko for a quick pee. My Niko pee alarms have been set for midnight and 3:30 am when he goes to bed around 9 pm; out target was 7:15 pm now now it’s around 8:15 pm. And, I am very glad that his sheets and pajamas have been dry since this fiasco started. That’s because when he runs around crazy, I make sure to have him pee!
Eventually, when Niko does fall asleep, Nina and I enjoy our quiet time alone for a few minutes; me downstairs and her upstairs.
I am glad that I finished my first term at WGU on April 7th. The next day is when I started working from home. My second term at WGU started on May 1st and I need time in the evenings for schoolwork. I ended up doing 30 minutes on Friday and did nothing last night because I was to stressed out. I thought about the possibility of moving my term to June 1st for about 5 minutes, but I really want to get it started so I can get it finished.
