Kids and SLEEP!

This is a hot topic among parents... why?  Oh, because if your kids don't sleep well then neither do you - but that's not all... oh no... if they don't sleep well (and they don't nap anymore) then you don't even have a CHANCE of having a normal, happy, relaxing day.  This is why some parents become sleep nazi's when they have young children.  I am guilty of being a little nazi-ish.

Ok so here's the scoop.  Olivia doesn't do well on little sleep.  We know this, we have experienced it time and time again.  Neither do Jack and Ellee for the record, but this week it has been about my Olivia.  My sweet seven year old.  She stayed up until 10:00 thursday night because she was reading in her room (I didn't know this until ten o'clock when I went to check on her.)  Then Friday night we had some friends of hers over who are older and do much better staying up I'm sure... but anyway she was up til 11. 
By the way... kids don't "SLEEP IN" at this age.  Not sure when that starts to happen but I'm going to put my money on it being high school...  If she goes to bed at 11 she still wakes up at seven!
Anyway, so by Saturday she is a mess.  A whiney, bossy, stubborn mess of a child that you have to walk around on egg shells to avoid upsetting her.  It is now Sunday night and I can finally say with hope that we are back to normal.   Two full days to pay for staying up those two nights late in a row.

Jack is finally sleeping in his own bed.  We sprayed the monster spray and scared all the monsters out of his bedroom, so it's safe.  He still comes down in the middle of the night crying sometimes, saying his knee hurts or his leg hurts.  This concerned us at first, but now I think it's just his thing he says when he wakes up at night.  So we get him an ice pack and go lay with him for a minute until he falls back asleep.  But overall he sleeps pretty well.   He doesn't nap anymore so it's usually pretty easy to get him down at night.  He usually sleeps from 8pm-7am.  On Olivia's gymnastics night he almost always falls asleep watching cartoons while she is gone.  Usually around 6:30.  We move him up to his bed and he stays asleep usually til morning.  Sometimes comes down around ten and needs his "milk with three ice cubes in his Elmo cup."

Ellee takes one big fat nap during the day.   She also goes to bed around 8 or 8:30 when the big kids do. She loves to climb into Jack's bunk bed with him.  Half the time I let her lay there for 5 minutes and pretend she's going to sleep there.  They snuggle and giggle and then 5 minutes later Jack is yelling to me  "Mom! Elle is bothewing me"  So I have to tear her little body from the bed while she cries "NO!"  She loves Jack.  She would also sleep in Olivia's room.  That girl loves her big brother and sister.

Ellee unfortunately has learned how to scream "MOM!" from her crib.  How come I'm not Mommy?  That's what I'd like to know!  Or even Momma.  Does she really have to skip right to Mom?   Anyway, for some reason she if she wakes up in the middle of the night screaming for me I have to go running upstairs (from zero to sixty... or at least zero to twenty mph) so she doesn't wake the others up.   The downside to having your bedroom on the first floor.

Sleep is a good good thing.  You take it for granted when you're getting it, but then if you have a bad night you remember how precious it is.  It's like gold.

Signing off to go get some sleep myself!  xo Marathon Momma