Sweet Sleep...or the Opposite

 

C told me from the backseat the other day, "No, I do not sleep on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 days. I only sleep on Mondays."

Isn't that the truth.

The girls have a regular bedtime schedule. They get their pj's on and brush teeth around 7:30pm. We read together until 8pm. Hubby and I turn on their music, tuck them in, give goodnight kisses, leave. The girls have a small light in their room that is on a timer, and turns off at 9:30pm.

B usually stays up and reads until the light turns off, and occasionally we find her laying on her belly, book stretched out to reach the light from the hallway. She goes to sleep on her own when she is finished, and wakes up happy in the morning, so it works for us.

B was a LOVELY napper. When she was a baby, she set herself on a sleep schedule...napping from 9:30am - 11:30am, and then from 1pm - 4pm. I didn't know how good I had it. I had time to blog, time to read, time to clean, all in a quiet, serene environment. When she woke up, of course, it was a different story, but those hours throughout the day were so revitalizing. She went to bed at 7:30pm, and slept until 5am, and although that was an early wake up call, she was almost always in a good mood upon waking, and would keep herself busy for awhile in the morning. She has always enjoyed her own space, so co-sleeping was never an option.

C, on the other hand...She tells me she does not like the dark, and does not like to close her eyes. When she was a baby, she would nap for 45 minutes during the day at the most, and only after crying and fighting until she had nothing left to give. Those short naps disappeared around 18 months. She would sleep for about 8 hours through the night, but often only if she was snuggled right next to me. She was intense for every single other one of the 15 hours and 15 minutes left in the day.

Whew. I am worn out again just thinking about it.

These days, she is still intense, she rarely naps and it only occurs if we are driving around in the late afternoon, and that is ALWAYS worse than her skipping the nap altogether. She wants me to snuggle her at bedtime until she goes to sleep, which although I love it and try to soak all the snuggling up that I can before she gets to be what she thinks is "too big for that", my moments to myself and with my husband are few. If she does sneak in that nap, she is up for hours in the evening, and would like some entertainment, please. Most times, she is just tired and on the verge of hysteria and meltdown and the slightest thing sends her over the edge...it's a tightrope event every night.

Then there is the morning. I set my alarm for 5:15am daily, hoping to have some quiet time for myself to drink my coffee and do some writing, but most days C is up by 5:40am.

"Mama! The sun is up, so I am up!"

After we watched Frozen for the first time, I started calling C "Anna" in the mornings...such similar wake up calls. :)

She is not always a pleasant little bird in the mornings like her sister, and I have learned to just stop whatever it is that I am doing and pretend that I have just been waiting for this early morning moment to greet her, when my mind is screaming, "Can I just get 30 minutes of peace here?"

It can be very difficult some days. The worst ones include me feeling drained of patience at bedtime and my last words of the night coming out short and frustrated, causing tears (her) and guilt (me). Others leave me feeling like I am just spoiling her and giving into to her every whim and if I would just toughen up and tell her no, everything would be better. But I think anyone who can empathize with my plight knows that is just not the answer.

So what to do? For now, I am adding more activity to our day, attempting to keep her going non-stop to avoid the nap, wear her out sufficiently without sending her over the OE cliff. This will be a difficult transition, assuming it works, for B and I, who are more of the quiet-homebody-never-leave-the-house-if-we-have-a-book types, and it may result in some meltdowns of a different color for her. Maybe me too, to be honest...but there has to be a solution, right?

I'd love to hear ideas that you have tried, what worked, what didn't...because as I am sure you are painfully aware, what works one day may not work the next, and my bag of tricks could always use some refilling.

For now, I'll rest, because that sweet, sassy face will be popping through my door to greet me soon...

Meltdown City

image: tiffany terry

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C has crazy, scary, unpredictable meltdowns. It usually begins with something I say innocuously.

"Please take off your paint shirt before you go in the living room."

Or something she does, or something that happens. Something I would never imagine would set off the cycle...

 "I can't button my pants!"

"My raisin fell on the floor!"

"I can't reach that!"

"You put my syrup on top of my pancake instead of beside!"

...turn into yelling, angry face, awful words, hysterical crying, "please hold me, Mama, don't go, just hold me", tears streaming, turning into hysterical laughter and the exhausted calm and the "I'm so sorry, Mama. I was just so angry."

We've tried deep breathing. We've discussed that all problems have solutions, if you can stay calm long enough to figure it out. It's that "stay calm long enough" part that tends to be an issue. 

She isn't a spoiled kid, in fact, she is a wonderful, kind, empathetic girl. She doesn't like to freak out. It exhausts her. She even knows she needs some self-regulation and asks to do yoga after she regains her sanity. (Thank you CosmicKids Yoga on YouTube. You are a necessity in this house.) I know that with time and maturity, (hopefully) she will improve her ability to manage her emotions.

Prior to staying home with the girls, I was an early childhood specialist, doling out advice to frustrated parents who didn't know how to deal with their child's out of control behavior.

 "He's doing that for attention. Just let him cry it out in his room. It may take some time. He is in control of you when you let his throw the fit in front of everyone. Remove him from the situation."

I see now that despite the training and education I was drawing from, I had no idea what I was talking about. I want to go back and apologize to all of those parents. I had at that point so far only dealt with a very compliant 4 year old of typical fit-throwing abilities, and a classroom full of special needs preschoolers who spent just 3 hours of their day with me. I feel as though teachers often are absorbed into their bubble of time and space, and although what they (we) do is very important, we forget that we see our children but a fraction of their lives, and really can't get the whole picture of what is going on with these kiddos. In my own circumstance, I can look back and see that although I felt like I knew these children inside and out, I knew just a small piece about them, and most likely not enough to venture into advice territory. Perhaps just active listening and compassion would have been a better choice. But alas...that was another lifetime ago.

For a long time, I just felt like an awful mother during C's meltdowns. It was so frustrating, and time consuming, not to mention trying to keep a schedule and get anywhere on time is next to impossible when you don't know when the hurricane is about to hit. I practiced my own advice, and found that tossing her in a room by herself only made things worse (as I had cautioned other parents that it would) but instead of eventually calming down, she would just become emotionally frantic. Threatening consequences, bribing with rewards, throwing my own fit...there was no solution and mainly made things worse.

My philosophies have grown and changed since my teaching days. I keep a quote from GHF on my refrigerator now, "The times when kids need your love most may be the times when they behave in the most unloving ways. Try to understand what is happening in their heads and their hearts and address that first." I re-read it frequently.

 The Explosive Child, by Ross Greene is the most helpful book about parenting that I have read in awhile. It gave me some answers, some strategies, and gave me hope that I am not the world's worst parent. The Highly Sensitive Child, by Elaine Aron was encouraging as well, and helped me understand both of my little girls more completely.  I've learned that the most helpful thing I can do for C is weather the storm. hold her when she needs me to, and let her be. Sit on her bed, or lay beside her or hold her hand until she is able to calm down. Let her know that I support her when her emotions become too much, and improve my patience with her during the challenging times.

There are good days, and bad days, and there are just age-typical "I want my own way" days, which are an animal of their own requiring their own response. At the end of the day, though, I make it a point to have the girls find one or two of the best things about the day, and finish it on a positive note, concentrating on the happy moments and proud moments rather than the difficult ones.

Because as Roald Dahl wrote..." if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

Something I Wrote Once

Asynchrony

My girl is that unusual one...

The activist, making signs to “save the prairie dogs” at the soon-to-be developed field

Reading the book about the Civil War, crying throughout dinner

Over those who perished in the war, unable to take a bite.

Who is able to meet adults, professionals

And have eloquent discussions with them

Yet is too nervous to leave the house to meet a group of girls her own age.

Who blurts out a passage of a book that she has memorized

Because she is not certain of what to say,

And wants to be part of the conversation

Who answers big questions with good vocabulary

While her face is dripping with the water of melted ice,

Because she loves how it feels on her face

Whose hands are cracking, dry, because she hates the feel of lotion

Who flaps like a bird and stomps her feet when she gets excited

Quirks others don't understand...

The excitement that comes from reading the best part of the book

Saving an animal from harm

Finishing the math problems without help

Writing a story

Seeing something beautiful

Christina Rossetti

Abraham Lincoln

Ghost stories

Watching documentaries about anything prehistoric.

The solar system. The human body.

Who loves anatomy and practices cutting with a scalpel,

Dreaming of her future career as a surgeon

Who can tell me the species of

And intricate details about almost any bug or bird we meet

Who is teaching her little sister how to read and spell

Who can learn just about any new skill in five minutes.

Ten, if it's difficult.

Who wakes up in the night, crying because her pajamas no longer feel “right”

Who feels the most miniscule rock in her shoe, or chair, or anything she has to touch

Who asks me to put my hand on her lungs to confirm she is still breathing while she sleeps

Who senses my stressful mood before I do, and expresses my emotions before I realize them

Who expects lifelong friendship and connection after playing with a stranger for five minutes.

And is heart broken when that is not the case.

Who speaks of life and death and the existential beyond

With the understanding of a philosopher

Who remembers events and details about everything more fully than I can ever hope to.

Who loves to learn like a bird loves to fly

And fly she will, someday.

For now, she will swing on the pendulum,

The intensity of the sun

The feelings of a 5 year old

With the intuition of an adult

The reasoning of a sage

With the tantrums of a child

And an open heart, naive and vulnerable

To everything and everyone around her.

GiftedHomeschoolers.org was kind enough to publish this on their blog here. They have many fantastic resources for parents of gifted children and 2e children, and a discussion forum that is invaluable. This year, SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) is offering GHF supporting members a special discounted rate at their annual conference. This is a great opportunity to learn new information about supporting the social and emotional needs of our gifted learners, find support in the gifted community, and meet some great people. More information can be found at GHF here, and more details regarding the conference can be found at SENG here.