It's 2:15am, and Janey is happily watching Count With Maisy. She has worked out her own new sleep schedule. It consists of going to sleep at the earlier possible opportunity, often 6:30pm. She then wakes around 1am, ready for a party. We do what we can to get her to sleep, but often give up and put on a video. She watches and jumps around and periodically makes demands for food, which we turn down, causing her to scream, but not the lengthy hours long scream, just a momentary scream. Around 2:30 or 3, she drifts back off, to wake again around 6:30am. It's some good times, I tells ya.
Part of the fun is the time from 5:30pm, when she gets home from afterschool, and 6:30, her new bedtime she's picked. That is an hour of non-stop crying and eating. She comes home in a mood and a half. Tony gives her dinner right away, and more dinner, and more dinner, and some after dinner treats and some dessert. She stops screaming long enough to eat and demand more to eat. Then she demands a snuggle with me, by which point we are ready to do anything to stop the crying. Then she goes to sleep.
This is actually an improvement over a few weeks ago, when she hadn't figured out yet she wanted to go to sleep that early. Then, she was screaming from when she got home until 8 or so. Then she was waking at 3 or so to stay up, demanding and angry.
Needless to say, Tony and I are often exhausted during the day. I feel for him, at work. He can't arrange his schedule to nap. I do---working all I can in the morning and early afternoon, and then collapsing for an hour or two.
I've realized lately that Janey has become more of a fan of routines, whether the routines are pleasant or not. For example, the other day I took out her barrettes. That is usually followed by brushing her hair, but I got distracted and it didn't that time. Janey hates her hair brushed, hates it very much. But after a few minutes went by and I hadn't brushed, she brought me the hairbrush and handed it to me. It was time to brush, like it or not, she seemed to be saying. So I did, and she screamed as usual. Then again I got distracted. She came over again after a bit, and said "Braid?" I hadn't fixed her hair, braided or ponytaled it or whatever, which she also doesn't like but which is the routine. And so I think the coming home, crying, sleeping early, waking in the night, has become the routine to follow. Last night in the car home, she even seemed to be planning it. She said, in a type of speech I've never heard from her before "I say 'I am ANGRY at you, Daddy!'" She never actually says that to him, just screams, but I guess she was planning the screaming.
So what do we do? History has showed we wait it out. That is all that seems to work. Christmas vacation is coming soon, and that will change the routines,and hopefully break this latest one. Until then, we are daytime zombies, evening objects of fury, middle of the night monitors. Life with Janey.
Rarer in Girls...Life with my daughter Janey, who is twenty and severely autistic
4 comments:
This might be an obvious question, but does she eat enough at school? Maybe she needs to have an extra snack? Also, would they be able to give her some downtime after lunch (more reasonable nap time)? Maybe she can lay down in the reading corner or something. I can relate to the no-sleep fatigue for sure though- we got 2 babies who don't sleep!
It's tough living with a Diva. Sometimes I think Lindsey dreams up ways to make me crazy. Janey is probably reacting to all the extra holiday stimuli at school. You are right about just waiting it out although the waiting feels like an endless pit of despair. My Christmas wish for you is that everything returns to "normal" or at least tolerable. :)
That sounds so difficult.
How does she react if you pick her routine instead of her picking it? Such as you say when it's time for bed?
I agree, Janey seems to really like her routine - even she also hates it. Ciena likes her routine too - but I have found that when I let her go and do it, she will change it up on her own a naughty little way. :-/ Which is frustrating!
I hope things get better for you! (Maybe a tall glass of wine is in order.) :)
I'm pretty sure it's the Christmas routine changes---I hope anyway. Normal sounds heavenly! One thing I've forgotten the past few days is to bring a snack in the car. Janey doesn't eat super well at school, just because she likes her food freshly made to order, and Daddy does that for her! She will NEVER nap! And she does pretty well with being told it's bedtime, but that's easier when she is wanting to stay up, not when she wants to go to bed way too early! We've tried telling her it's not bedtime yet, but when she's ready for bed, she's ready for bed. Once in a long while, she'll go back to bed in the night when she wakes up if we tell her too, but usually it's like talking to a wall. I'm looking forward to Christmas being over, in a lot of ways, from a Janey perspective.
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