I'll use last night as an example. Last night I started getting the kids ready for bed around 7. Josh had a work dinner and when I'm on my own, their bedtime routine takes about an hour. The first part of their routine is giving them their bath. They really enjoy playing in the water, so they're usually in there for about 30 minutes. Afterwards, I got them out, and we put on jammies and brushed teeth while we were in there. Daddy got home around this point so they had a little extra playtime. At about 7:55, I asked the kids to pick out their bedtime story and read them their story. The girls gave hugs and kisses (Joel stays up a little later, I'll explain that in a bit), and I tuck the girls into their beds, pray over them, and shut their door.
Normally, it only takes about 15 minutes before Hannah comes out of her room. Here are her most common excuses:
"My throat hurts."
"I need a drink."
"I'm going to have a bad dream."
"I can't cover myself back up."
And all sorts of variations of those excuses. This lasts until she fell asleep. She didn't fall asleep until midnight last night, and Emma didn't fall asleep until after 11. Emma is better about staying in her bed but she sometimes fights with her sister and they get too loud and keep Joel awake.
The part that made me most crazy was that Emma got up at 5:30 saying she had a bad dream. I turned on a movie for her in her bedroom and tried to go back to sleep. Hannah came in at 6:30 and they were up for the day at 7.
I would be fine with our day starting at 7 if they went to sleep when they were supposed to. But when they are up until midnight, I'm not okay with it. Especially when their day really started at 5:30.
Now I have cranky, tired kids and I'm exhausted myself. I had to wait until they were asleep before I could take my shower and it takes a while for my hair to dry enough to where I can go to bed, so I didn't get to bed until 1.
Yeah....sleeping from 1-5:30 isn't enough for this pregnant lady. Especially since I get woken up a little when Josh gets up (at 4:30) and don't really fall back asleep until he leaves (5:15).
I have tried moving naptime back a few hours. It didn't help. Emma gave up naps when she was 3 but Hannah still needs her nap. If she doesn't get it she either winds up falling asleep on her own at some point in the day or she just falls apart around dinner time and is impossible to deal with until she goes to bed. Because of this I don't feel that cutting out naptime is an option.
Now, onto Joel. He stays up later than his sisters because he has his own room, plus his sisters sometimes get a movie. He goes to bed around 9, but ultimately I would like him to go to bed at 8 or 8:30 as well. Sometimes, when we put him to bed he cries because he doesn't want to bed and I have to intervene because he starts to bang his head on the door to get attention. The times when he does go to sleep, he often wakes up at 3 or 4 in the morning and winds up in the bed with us. Last night, however, he did great. He went to bed without a fuss and slept through the entire night. I have no idea what made the difference.
I really do not know what to do. All I know is I am so tired of dealing with this every night. Josh has to go to bed at 10 because he has to get up so early for work, so I'm often alone in dealing with all of them at night. I need time to wind down too. And I stay up way too late because of this and wind up exhausted the next day.
Sorry this post was not very organized and a bit all over the place. I'm tired... ;)
I'm hoping this is something we can get fixed soon because I definitely don't want to deal with this when we have a newborn too!
