Help
With Your Rule
Impatience and Lack of Sleep
Dear Holly,
I am in the middle of reading your book and I believe I am already gaining some helpful insights from it. I have 3 children; a 12 year old boy, 7 year old boy and a 2 year old girl. None of my children have ever slept more than 2-3 hours in a stretch until they were 3-4 years old. My 2 year old is still waking 2-3 times a night and often will stay awake for an hour or more - doesn't cry or fuss, just lies awake and chats or plays with her toes. Needless to say, after twelve years with little sleep, most nights just 3-4 hours, due to restless kids, I am totally exhausted. My patience has dwindled down to next to none. We're in our fifth year of homeschooling and, overall, it is going well. My problem is the patience issue. I find myself losing my patience with the children, especially my 7 year old who is a very sweet soul but is full of energy and very little attentiveness. I've been posing this question to my husband and now I pose it to you. How do I get through the day as a patient and loving mother when I'm so tired I feel like I can't even think straight, let alone, conduct a peaceful home.
Labels: 2nd P Person, 4th P Parent
posted by Holly at 2:31 PM
13 Comments:
Challenging situation! :-)
OK, for me, I guess I would try to break down the issues a bit and see which ones might work.
First - I'd look at trying to help my naturally awake children learn to sleep through the night. (I have one of those, just so you know...). I'd look at a number of things here -
-getting them up earlier
-putting them to bed later
-eliminating naps or reducing them or scheduling very very short ones prior to lunch time
-increasing their physical exercise during the day (when we go to the beach in the summer, even my wide-awake child passes out completely).
-increasing fat in their diet, especially just before bedtime - a good glass of homogenized milk and a couple of cookies even
Secondly, if a combination of these things did not help, I'd look at having them learn to not need me during the night. When my chidlren were 20 months old, I babyproofed their rooms - had only a bed and toys on the floor, with perhaps a little table and lap (depending on the child). I put a gate up at night. If the child woke up in the middle of the night, and was content to stay and play with their toes, I didn't get up. As long as the child was safe, they were free to be awake - but it wasn't necessary for me to spend all that time with them. Providing a pile of books; a semi-low bulb wattage in a ceiling light; access to toys; a sippy-cup of water; even a couple of crackers... I'd look at that.
Thirdly, I'd look to my own sleep schedule and see if I couldn't get to bed a little earlier - perhaps while hubby is still up to supervise -
And if none of this worked, I would actually consider taking my child to the doctor to see if everything was OK. And in that event, I'd look at taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon until my little one got to the age when this passed, enlisting if necessary the aid of the 12 year old to help babysit.
If nothing works to help you get your sleep, then you would have to look at it as a reality of your vocation and learn to sleep in shifts for the next couple of years - I certainly don't think functioning on 3 hours of sleep is sustainable and conducive to patience - altho I have known Moms who are doing it, and doing it well... I couldn't...
As for patience - if the situation cannot be altered, then I would probably find myself having to 'accept' this situation deeply - and I probably would struggle with it, just so you know - and I would then look at reducing many other things in my life so I could be able to be patient with my children. A high-pressured rule or many commitments outside the home would not be a help but a hinderance. I'd be focusing on the essentials of my vocation with little else.
Now - any other Moms in this situation and how do you cope with it? How do you look at it? How do you deal with it philosophically? I'm sure this Mom would like some helpful hints...
Here are just a couple of things that help me tremendously.
1. We have a rest time in the middle of the day for EVERYONE. (I have 6 kids 11, 8, 6, 4, 2, 4 mo.) They are all separated and the older ones can read, middle ones can quietly play alone. Depending on the day I will do my spiritual reading, pay bills or SLEEP! Even if we don't sleep the quiet down time helps everyone have a better day.
2. Two of my kids who woke up a lot were simply low on Iron. I started giving them children's vitamins with iron and they started sleeping.
3. Definately do whatever you can to sleep during the day sometime - preferably at the same time each day. Even if you have to park your kids in front of a 30 min. video (we don't watch much TV - but I will use it if absolutely necessary for sleep or meditative prayer time)!!
One other thing I have done with all my children - while they have a standard bedtime, they are free to read or play quietly on their beds until they wish to go to sleep. I have always had great success , from very early ages, with this because no one dreads bedtime, and they tend to fall asleep on their own time-clock. I have always found this preferable to putting a child to bed in a dark room and saying 'Go to sleep!" Thus, even when my middle child tended to stay awake until 11:00 or later (my wide-awake child), she tended then to sleep thru the night.
If you haven't discovered it already, you might find help in the "No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers."
We had two children that had a hard time sleeping, and changing their clothing and sheets and blankets (and all toys and pillow shams, comforters, etc) that were in contact with them during "sleep time" to all cotton fixed it. Turned out they were sensitive to polyester (that's common, evidently, which we thought was strange).
Eliminating naps works for many children, but with the kids we know, the opposite is usually true. If your youngest doesn't take a nap, she may need one-- being overtired "winds them up" and then they have an even harder time sleeping. Changing go-to-sleep and get-up times also throws things off, so if you aren't on an every-day-the-same routine for those, you might want to consider it.
Also, calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D are necessary for good sleep-- and magnesium needs to be on a one-to-one ratio with calcium, but most supplements have it as a one to two or a one to four. Regardless of what the label claims, repeated tests have shown milk won't help you much with calcium nor minerals-- most of the minerals are leached out of milk by the time it gets to you (assuming you buy yours at the store), and without the minerals, calcium isn't absorbed. (Also, most dentists and doctors will tell you to ditch homogenized (store-bought) milk-- too much sugar and too many calories for no nutritional value-- bad for teeth and waistlines). Although, as fat to keep them "full" during the night it would work-- assuming it's 2% or whole. Peanut butter (assuming you don't have family histories of allergies) will do the same.
God bless and I hope you find something that works for your "snoozer".
Actually, re: my posting about drinking milk to increase fat content - fat does have a relaxing effect on people. I use it myself when I can't sleep... a full tummy and all that too..
But what this latest post shows too, and thank you anonymous, is that there could be a physical reason for this which could be addressed - perhaps a doctor visit might possibly be in order. I know for my middle child, it was a hormonal issue which affected her sleep needs.
Thanks for all the helpful insights. I have read all the comments with interest and have my mind working on trying some of your ideas tonight.
Valerie - let us know how it works out!
I am from Mexico and everybody there are always in favor of naps,(as someone said everybody has a quiet-rest time) having said that for children over 2 years old no naps allowed after 4:00! If they fall sleep I let them 15 min and then wake them up. They will be so tired that by 7:30 -8:00 they will want a soothing bath and then snugle in bed!
Hope it works
One book you might try is "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," by Marc Weissbluth. I used it with my latest child, now 8 months, and he sleeps much better now than his siblings did at that age. (Haven't gotten to the toddler chapter yet ... )
I've had poor, constantly interrupted sleep the past 3 1/2 years because of the kids. I, too, have struggled with patience. I find myself getting so, so angry with my toddler sometimes I feel like I should go to confession everyday.
But something helped me recently to not be so hard on myself and to see things in a somewhat different light. Rather than seeking ONLY spiritual help I went to a psychologist for the first time. He has a specialty in post-partem issues like mine, and believes that the anger and frustration (in otherwise happy homes) is simply a sign of an imbalance, not a problem in and of itself to be solved. The problem of imbalance somewhere in your life physically (sleep!), mentally, spiritually, or socially will reveal itself in symptoms.
In other words, don't focus so much on the patience issue itself, focus on regaining balance first. Then, as a devout woman, I'm sure you'll find the patience virtue more realistically attainable.
Bl. Mother Teresa often got very little sleep, too, but was a very patient woman. She had her social, mental, and spiritual aspects all in a wonderful balance, and so was able to compensate for the physical sleep imbalance. More time for prayer and spiritual reading is one of the "privileges" of the religious life!
You may want to look at www.sleeplady.com -- read the articles there or buy the sleep lady's book. you could consult with her directly for $125 an hour. but you'll already learn quite a lot just from the articles. she advocates a no-cry approach to "coaching" little ones to sleep.
i've been there and i know it can be very challenging to be sleep deprived. my 4 yr-old still needs to somebody by her bed to fall asleep and then she crawls into our bed in the middle of the night, but it doesn't bother me. i just sleep right through, most nights.
good luck to you!
lexi(who's still waiting for her copy of MROL but it's taking forever because i live in the philippines)
Hi Lexi, all the way from the Philippines! I will pray your book gets to you ASAP! :-)
Blessings
Holly
There is nothing like being sleep deprived to make us think that we are the worst mothers in the world. By the time my youngest was two weeks old (and had not slept more then 10 hours in two weeks) I was sure that I had ruined her life, my life, my husbands life, that I had caused a famine somewhere in the world and I couldn't cook dinner becouse I couldn't find the milk (whole milk that will make me fat!!!) becouse I had put it under the kitchen sink, next to the dish soap. In the last four years we have slept (a little at least) and with some amount of perspective I can say that when we are sleep deprived we are not rational!!!!!!! We are not the best ones to judge if we are impatent or have nutritional needs to address. First things first, sleep. Call your mom, your sister, your husband or your friend, and sleep! Then try to think rationaly about how to ever sleep again. For me I can read all of the very good advise here and it makes sense, but after not sleeping in six months I can't remember if even know how to read!?! Long term solutions are important but only if we can think rationally enough to emplement them. As a young mom who is not always good at asking for help I think that the need for sleep is one of those things we have to learn to ask for. I know I should go to bed right now (since SHE is sleeping) but I can't find the milk!
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