Which brings me to Jane. Jane does not like to go to bed. She will push us and push us until we are fighting with her to go to sleep. Jane apparently does not need a lot of sleep. She doesn't nap during the day (even at school she doesn't nap during nap time) and would stay up until 11 if we let her. Once we do get her in the bed (or the floor, which she prefers for some reason. She either sleeps in her sleeping bag or her new nap mat when its not at school.), she pleads for us to stay in there with her until she falls asleep. So, what ends up happening is we fall asleep and sometimes before she does. When we do wake, we are so tired that we just want to go straight to sleep. This is the time that I can do the things I want to do, but I am too tired to do them! So....I created a "Bedtime Routine" sheet and will be buying her a digital clock so she can coordinate the time with the pictures of what she need to be doing. And I have told her that we cannot stay in the room with her until she falls asleep. We will check on her to make sure she is ok.
Hopefully, next week I can report that bed time is not as stressful for me anymore. Instead of starting dinner at 5 or 5:30 and leaving Jane's room at 9 (with a bunch of fighting over bedtime in between) I hope to be out of her room at 8 and awake. If Hyde is working late or riding his bike, this "witching 3.5 hours" can be very tiring! And if this works, we can rotate the bed time earlier. We need to prep for school in the Fall....
