Help or book recommendation?

[fyoosh]

I have posted here before when I have been driven crazy ;) I am still being driven crazy.

Some background:

My son is about 3.3 and he is a night owl something fierce. Daddy is a huge night owl, and so am I. Daddy works nights, so he doesn't get home from work until at least 12:30am.

DS tends to not go to sleep until 11:30 or so unless he hasn't napped -- then sometimes it's as early as about 7pm -- but that is rare. They make the kids at his preschool nap, even though he doesn't need to. We wake at 7:30am to get ready for school. Yes, he is CRAAAAANKY, even though he says he isn't.

I know you can't really MAKE a kid go to sleep. I tried the natural consequence thing, where I basically told him that he could stay up, but he was going to be tired the next day, and I was going to sleep -- I would prefer it if he only woke me if he really NEEDED to (I am cranky on less than 8 hours sleep). This didn't work -- he stayed up really late, woke me about 282 times to tell me things like "I made a lego tower!", "there's a teeeeeeeeeeny spider in the bathroom, mommy!", "I can't close my eyes, except when I blink!" (very logical on the last one there LOL!). The next day he was an absolute NIGHTMARE to wake up. So I told him his body would feel a lot better if he got more sleep and he should go to bed earlier that night. "OK Mommy". Did that work? BZZZZZZT. LOL...

I should tell you he sleeps in his own room, and usually doesn't want to sleep with us anymore (we used to cosleep). Occasionally he will fall asleep in our bed, but once he gets up to go pee, he goes back to his own bedroom.

Any suggestions, or book recs?

[alexsam]

It sounds like the nap is the problem... could you talk to the pre-school and explain your situation and ask that, just to see if it works, if maybe he could color or read or do a quiet activity during naptime for a week? I don't know how flexible they are, but it sounds pretty serious at home and if you can identify the nap as the source of the night-time trouble, you can go from there.

As for trying to break a night-owl, I don't have much to say there. I think some people just are (my MIL stays up every night until 2am and sleeps until 10am. I could NEVER live on that schedule!). My only idea would be to establish a bedtime routine and once he is in bed, say something like "It's bed time- you can read or play, but you must stay in bed." and see what happens. Not to be cruel or like a jail or something, but more like a series of cues that it is time to wind-down and then, once in bed, to not become active again. I used to work at a residential treatment facility with school aged kids. They would visit their parents for the weekend and stay up until all hours and be totally off when they got back. We did this, and though they would be in a bed-tent with a flashlight and book or toys up really late for a few days, they eventually fell into the rhythem...

[fyoosh]

I have a conference with his teachers on Wednesday, I will ask them about the napping.

I would have NO PROBLEM with him staying up late if he stayed in his room coloring, or looking through books, or playing with his legos, or even watching videos... but he doesn't stay in there. He comes into my room several times telling me about what he is doing or showing me things or whatever. When he does this, I ask, "would you like to sleep in here with mommy tonight?" thinking maybe he is missing me or something, and he says "NO!" and runs back into his room. :mischief

The morning is a problem when he stays up late, too. So I will figure something out. Or go crazy. One of the two. :lol