baby growth baby

Saturday 26 January 2008

Having a Child that Doesn't Sleep is Hard.

My husband has always said he doesn't need a lot of sleep. I knew this from when we first got married and he would stay up until 3 am playing games. He would then come to bed only to be up about four or five hours later. That is until the last two years or so. Now when he comes to bed and its three in the morning he wants to sleep until noon.
I think my son has inherited my husband's sleeping patterns as a child/young adult. My son does not need a lot of sleep and it's making it very hard on me lately. I am 30+ weeks pregnant, I work full time (9hours a day) and come home to play with my son and get dinner done and out of the way, and then its time for bed. Well, I'm ready for bed at that point, but Ryan hasn't seemed to be. It's been 11 o'clock or later when he's been going to sleep only to be up at 6:30 or 7 the next morning. ~I~ need more sleep than that, surely a toddler at the age of 2.5 needs more sleep than that. I have been super tired lately because of this. I even had a breakdown one night and started crying because I was so tired but Ryan wouldn't go to bed.
After about a month of this happening every night, I finally changed things around completely. Sure, we'd changed little things here and there during that month but it didn't seem to help at all. Finally, I decided to change our bedtime routine a bit, and then I go in and sit with Ryan until he's asleep. I know I'm making a rod for my own back here, but I think I can deal with that part later - as long as he's sleeping now, that's what counts for me. I have been watching Ryan over the past few days and have noticed him being clingy(er) when I get home, than he has been in the past. When we eat dinner (we eat on the floor. House too small for a table) he is practically sitting on my lap to eat his dinner. He is sitting right next to me, so much that when I go to use my fork I sometimes bump his head with my elbow. He will sit right next to me the entire time, and once I get up he follows me. I think I have sussed why he hasn't wanted to go to bed on his own. My conclusion is: seperation anxiety. He sees that I go to work every morning, am gone all day (I used to come home at lunch time but have been too tired to walk the half mile home and back to work in an hour and then continue to be on my feet), and then finally I come home. How do you "fix" seperation anxiety? I don't have a clue. I am working on it though.