Getting Real With Wanda Morrissey
Up until this point I have been very lucky with my son’s sleeping habits. At six months old, Jeffrey (who will be 3 shortly) was only waking once a night. He was sleeping through the night at 12 months. He would wake at 7:00am, which worked well for me. I work part-time evenings and don’t get home until 11:00pm. Jeffrey getting up at 7:00am meant that I got a good nights sleep, too.
But my luck’s run out and all I want is some sleep.
About two months ago Jeffrey decided that sleeping was no longer necessary. It started when he gave up his afternoon nap. I knew that he would stop taking naps soon so, by itself, giving up his nap wasn’t a big deal, but at the same time, he started waking up at 5:00am. That’s just way too early!
He goes to bed at 8:00pm so this new change in his sleep pattern means that he is only getting nine hours of sleep a day and that’s not enough. He’s tired by early afternoon but refuses to nap; by suppertime he’s exhausted. He goes to sleep with little problem but is up early again the next morning.
I’ve tried everything I can think of to get Jeffrey to sleep better. Because he’s so tired at suppertime, he’s not eating properly. I thought that maybe he was waking up hungry. I tried giving him a bigger bedtime snack but that didn’t work. I thought that he might be cold so I put an extra blanket on his bed; that didn’t work. I thought maybe he was too hot so I put lighter sheets on the bed…
that didn’t work.
I let him crawl into bed with his father and me.
I tried sleeping in his bed with him.
I let him stay up later in hopes that he’d sleep longer.
Nothing has worked; he’s still getting up at 5:00am.
I’m out of ideas now. I can only hope that this is a phase that he’s going through (a really short phase) that he outgrows soon. If it continues, then I guess I’m going to have to face the possibility that Jeffrey is going to be an early riser and I’ll be a sleep deprived mama until he goes to school and I switch to working days.
Until then, we both need to get some sleep!
