Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Sleep Help Day 1

We had a difficult day today and it made me even more anxious because I knew we were starting the new sleep plan for Ceili, our 5 year old daughter today.

The sleep consultant told me to watch for when she was tired and put her for a nap then (yes, she still naps for around an hour a day which is surprisingly normal!). She was acting tired at around 12:30 pm after we had lunch so I put both girls for a nap. Abbey, our 17 month old was out like a light. Ceili on the other hand was acting crazy in her bad, saying she couldn't sleep. I went in to check on her at one point and she had changed her clothes, taken every bow she owns down off of her bow holder and had played with a bunch of toys in her room. Needless to say there was no nap for her and she ended up having a meltdown afterwards saying she was "sooo tired".

When Matt came home at 4:30 pm she was eating an apple for a snack and we had to keep her awake because she was nodding off and spilling apple slices everywhere! She got her second wind, thankfully and ate supper fine. I gave them both a bath right after bed and got them into pj's. They had a snack and Ceili brushed her teeth and went potty then we read a couple of books to them. She was excited because she got a sticker on her chart for doing those things.

Then the nighttime routine began. It was Matt's turn to put her to bed so she got to choose a "dream card". I put them together by finding photos from magazines and gluing them onto heavy paper. The photos are of things like a field of flowers, mountains, a lake with geese, etc. Matt and Ceili talked about the picture before bed and helped her to visualize what could be happening in the picture to help her be calm and have sweet dreams. He also did the usual routine of telling her a story and singing a song. He said she was pretty crazy and not calm at all though.

She came out of her room once and went potty again then tried to argue about her slippers because she couldn't find them. Matt reminded her of the rules and she went back to bed and was asleep by 8pm! What a change! I am hoping that she sleeps through the night and feels rested in the morning.

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