Skip to main content

tired girl = MONSTER!

i'm so at a loss for what to do with layla lately.  she's given up naps but still technically needs them.  but if she does nap, she stays up until like 10pm.  either way, it's a bad situation.  now, with the whole time change thing, she's getting up before the crack of dawn, making things even better.  every evening is a huge struggle now, leaving me trying to get dinner ready and deal with micah's antics, shane's activities and whatnot, with her whining or falling apart or fighting with shane or getting into trouble because she gets all hung up on doing something that i'm telling her not to do.  it is MOST unpleasant.  then, by the time dinner is actually on the table, she's too wigged out and almost never eats it, something i'm sure is doing wonders for her general mood as well.  then comes the getting jammies on/brushing teeth/getting into bed battle.  it's like it never ends.  she's so tired she can't function in a civilized fashion, but she won't just go to bed.  that's when she gets all high-maintenance and insists on taking up gobs of my time that i can't give her because i have 2 other kids that are usually attempting in one way or another to get my attention too. 

what do i do here? do i try to make her take a nap (which is a battle in itself, and usually unsuccessful) and then deal with her up all night? or do i keep having her power through and deal with nightly HELL?  either way, she's driving me crazy and right now my evenings really suck! 

Comments

  1. RachelNovember 4, 2008 at 7:01 PM

    Ok...I have had some of this with Rachel and in the end we created a chart with an incentive at the weekend if she was good during the week. So on Rachel's chart I would have... be a good girl, have no fuss on, go to bed like a good girl, clean teeth, etc...etc. I know Rachel has never really been a napper and if she does have a lie in on a morning or for any reason she does have a sleep during the day then we are doomed when it comes to bed time. Also if Rachel gets over tired then we are screwed too and she won't sleep then either and I am talking raising the flippin roof with tantrums and hysterics!
    So...i have to keep her sleeping patterns consistant and get her up early and get her to bed at a decent time! Have you tried putting Layla to bed at say 6.30pm in the hope that she will adjust to a suitable sleep pattern.
    Rachel...at the end of the day, all you can do is keep your fingers crossed and hope she gets through this quickly!
    I am thinking of you and the site for the charts that I use is:
    http://www.dltk-cards.com/chart/index.html
    Rachel and I build them together so we can set goals together and so she understands why she has a chart she gets quite excited to chose the theme and help decide what her goals should be and what 'prize' she would like if she gets lots of stickers on her chart!
    Good luck Rachel! Otherwise just sell her! HaHa Just kidding OBVIOUSLY!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

all comments are moderated. unkind comments will be deleted.

you may like...

project life– march 2012

here are the layouts – actual pictures of the book in action – for march. march started on a thursday, but my pictures weren’t exactly sunday – saturday this week. I had no pic for wednesday, and no pic for friday. but 2 for both thursday and saturday. it worked… so we have the second half of this layout for the week 9: week 10 has one 8x10 collage of extras, plus a math homework worksheet of shane’s on the backside. it has a smiley face on it! :) week 11 has one 8x10 collage of extras and micah’s handprint “thing 1 and thing 2” that he made in preschool. week 12 includes our church retreat to camp lutherwood. I didn’t need an 8x10 of extras this week, but I needed two to cover all the stuff we did at camp. week 13 is possibly the most exciting week that will be in 2012. hard to say. but this week we bought a house! layla also bookended the week with birthday parties. I have one 8x10 of extras and a drawing layla made of a submarine. that’s march! it was very nice of march to end...
Post a Comment
read more »

layla's latest

i forgot to put this one in yesterday, but since i mentioned it at the meeting this morning, i should probably post it... yesterday morning i was in the shower and i became aware of the fact that layla had gotten up (i heard her unmistakably 'fast feet' cruising up and down the hall a few times). a minute later, she came in the bathroom, pulled back the shower curtain and said to me, "be careful, mommy!" and then ran out of the bathroom.
1 comment
read more »

the saga of micah and the never-ending mystery fever…. installment 1

my little guy has been plagued since wednesday, with this crazy fever that just keeps going up and down. my first clue should have been the 5am wake up on wednesday morning, and what sounded like some slight sniffles. layla had an appointment that morning to have her hearing tested, and i had arranged for micah to hang w/ my friend lindsey. he seemed kind of quiet and sleepy when i dropped him off, but i assumed that was due to a combination of being a little sleepy from getting up so early, and being in a strange place. when i came back to get him, just over  an hour later, he was passed out on the floor of the livingroom, in a pile of toy trains. interesting. we took layla to preschool and then came home, at which time, micah asked to watch phineas and ferb. so i turned it on and he lay, comatose, for the next half hour on the pooh couch. it was at this point that it occurred to me to take his temperature (duh!) and at 102.6, i gave up on my slow-poke thermometer and just w...
3 comments
read more »

week 30 in pictures

phew! nice to be back to some more basic weeks, especially where pictures are involved. no big events this week that required lots of pictures. sunday: it was my birthday, and I was perfectly content to spend the afternoon doing this: monday: layla got julie all set up in her bed, and even found her some reading material (a magazine of sorts). tuesday: well, not good news. on monday afternoon, my mom had a fall and wound up with a broken hip. they were not advising surgery to repair, so she was moved over to the hospice center across the street to recuperate in bed, hopefully healing the hip by not moving it. I spent the afternoon/evening visiting, and later reading my book as she slept. wednesday: they made a pillow fort. thursday: friday: there’s a first time for everything, right? so far, I have managed to avoid having a potato blow up in my oven… I can no longer say this… saturday: ribs. oh yeah. and some skinnies: shane, being silly in the trampoline with a feed sack on e...
Post a Comment
read more »

My favorite holiday

Back in the spring, I posted something somewhere about "clothesline day" being my favorite "holiday". In fact, here's a picture of me on Easter a few years ago, celebrating clothesline day (yes, with a mimosa - it was Easter). Basically, clothesline day is whatever day of the year happens to be the first day that the weather is warm, dry, and breezy enough to allow me to hang out my inaugural load of laundry. It makes me very happy, since, if you have read even a few posts on this blog you know that I am pretty well bonkers about line-dried laundry. I do, very much, love clothesline day. But it's not exactly a REAL holiday. And if I'm honest, I can't really even say that it's my favorite day of the year. That is something totally different: The Day After Thanksgiving. Some would call this day "Black Friday". Not me. Black Friday implies that I like the day because I enjoy getting up at ungodly hours of the night to stand in long lines i...
Post a Comment
read more »