The Winner is.....

Autumn!!! Autumn and I have been in a power struggle the past month or so over her sleeping patterns. I like schedules and I also like everyone to conform to the schedules I set. Well, I've slowly been learning that this lovely, laid-back little girl of mine has me a little blinded and that she also has a stubborn streak in her blood. Ofcourse she would because all girls in this household are strong-willed, independant, and stubborn and I guess she realized she better join the woman-power that rules this house...although James says he just lets us think we are in control but he really is...whatever!

Anyways, I would like for Autumn to wake up at 8am...nap between 1pm-3pm...and then go to bed at 9pm. Autumn would like to wake up about 9-10am...take a nap about 5-6:30pm...and then go to bed around 11pm-12am. As you can see this sleeping pattern does nothing to help me out. I'm up early to get the kids to school anyways so she should get up as well and most of her therapy session are at 9am. Late naps are okay since it is during dinner/homework times but the evenings Autumn gets a bath this gets to be a problem. Yes, I admit I am usually up until 11:30pm everynight BUT when we have no nurses I have to wait until Autumn goes to sleep before giving her nebulizer treatment (which takes about 20 mins) because if she's awake she dumps the nebs out or pulls the connection out of her vent tubings so this puts me into bed past midnight.

So, our battles go like this....I use to put her down around 12 or 1pm until she decided she does not want to sleep at this time anymore. I quickly surrendered with that battle and started laying her down at 3pm instead. Well, she will lay in her bed watching TV and FINALLY falls asleep about 5-5:30pm. I don't like her sleeping past 6pm so then we have to shake her, turn her, yell at her to get her to wake up...when she's out, she's really out. Gage does a pretty good job of waking her but she really hates being woken up to her brother climbing in her bed yelling to her in her ear...I don't blame her. She then fights sleep for about an hour or 2 at night and finally goes to bed about 10 or 11pm. Then there are the days when she decides she not taking a nap so if she's not asleep by 6pm we make her stay up (in hopes she will go to bed about 8pm). Well, she does go to bed around 9pm on these days but then she wakes up about 1am and stays awake until 4 or 5am. She also chooses to mainly do this on the nights there is no night nurse and daddy is working (fri/sat nights). At first I thought it was just from not having someone in the room with her but she has also done this when daddy or a nurse is here occasionally when she has had no nap...I think she's SO tired that she's too restless and cranky to even sleep.

So, after a month or 2 of this going on....I have finally decided to raise my white flag in the air and let her win this sleeping war because she's not giving into me at all! I decided I would much rather go to bed an hour later than being up for 3 or 4 hours in the middle of the night. ;) Maybe, just maybe she will finally have pity on her tired momma and decide to go back to her regular sleeping pattern someday soon.