Bed time battles with Livi suck. We have been having them, to some degree, for months. These last few weeks seem to be particularly difficult. We don’t know what to do with her, for her, or even too her. She can have the attitude and stubbornness of a PMSing, bi-polar, 14 year old… and I’m NOT exaggerating. She will throw herself to the ground and ignore us. She will come up with every excuse in the book to get us responding to her some how. She will kick the walls to make noise. She will toss books in to Sofie’s crib to “give her something to read”, but te books sometimes hit Sofie in the head. She will give us attitude… Not just 3 year old attitude, but the kind of attitude you get from a 16 year old who knows she is almost an adult and testing the limits. She will mimic what we say in a sassy voice. She will yell. She will do the exact opposite from what we tell her to do and then give us a look “daring” us to do something about it. SERIOUSLY!?! And all this is within the half hour we are trying to get her to be quiet in bed trying sleep! It really makes for some bad parenting some nights.

Is this normal 3 year old behavior? Are other parents experiencing bed time battles like this? She can have attitude during the day but not like this. Generally, she is a pretty awesome kid! Just not when going to bed.

What do we try after we have already attempted reasoning, giving extra attention, bribing, ignoring, allowing natural consequences, and giving consequences? What comes next after we have given a time out, talked and reasoned with her, threatened consequences, acted on those consequences by taking away her Elmo, fuzzy, pillow, her cartoons or privileges for the next morning and, I’m ashamed to say, even flicked her? We’ve exhausted all of our parenting strategies. (We will not spank our children. We think it is wrong and damaging. I know flicking her on occasion is hypocritical of us and a form of corporal punishment, which is why I am ashamed of trying that method of parenting. We were at our wits’ end.)

I know many people might suggest cutting her nap out all together but I’m not entirely sure that is the answer either. Livi has always been a good sleeper and been on the higher end of the scale for hours of sleep need than many of her peers. I’m the same way. While many people only need 7-8 hours of sleep, I am never fully rested unless I’ve had a good 9 hours. Livi is fully operational on 12-13 hours of sleep. (11 at night and a 1-2 hour nap.) I think cutting her naps out might disrupt her cycle to much and result in being over tired. She is yawning by 1:20pm most days. When we lay down for a nap she is almost always asleep within 10 minutes and then sleeps for 1-2 hours.

I am starting to try something different. I gave her the option of napping. She naps with me in my bed because naps don’t work for either girl if they are together and Sofie NEEDS her naps. I brought some puzzles and books in to my room and lay them on the floor beside the bed. I read her a book as usual and told her that I wanted her to lay down for 10 minutes for some quiet time. If she didn’t want to sleep she could quietly read the books or do the puzzles while Mommy slept. Well, she has fallen asleep each time and slept for over an hour each time.

For bed time, I told her that because she was a big girl, she gets to stay awake later than Sofie. After Sofie was in bed I cuddled with her in my bed, read her a book, got her to get in her pj’s and go to the bathroom then one more short book before I put her to bed in her own room. We still had a battle that was just as intense as usual but it is much shorter. We only “fought” with her for 15 minutes instead of the usual 45 minutes. I hope that things keep getting better and that this really does work. I honestly don’t know what else to do if this doesn’t work.

I’m so thankful that these last four weeks are coming to an end. We had at least three appointments for Sofie each week. Plus preschool, music class, ballet, a play date and a few appointments for other people. It was crazy and now that we are coming to the end, we are all fighting coughs or colds. It’s the way it goes, I guess.

It’s been a rough few nights here. Saturday night, Livi woke up with a 101 degree fever just before midnight. Once I got her temperature under control she woke Sofie up. Sofie was happy but proceeded to yell at the top of her lungs. It was impossible to sleep. She did this from 1am until just before 4am. I was losing my mind. Completely. Then she woke up at 7am!

The next night consisted of Sofie crying for 3 hours! We tried EVERYTHING to get her to relax and sleep. We redid her bedtime routine at least three times, we took her in to our room to calm down a few times, we sang, we rocked, we let her cry it out a bit, we gave her two separate doses of melatonin and finally Jon took her for a drive in the car. It worked! Only to have her wake up in the transfer! Argh! We figured since she’d been up and it was now 11pm, she was probably hungry again. We gave her a Pediasure and she was finally able to be calm enough to sleep. Now, she wasn’t hungry at the beginning of this evening. She had had a big dinner! But Pediasure’s are one of her favorite things in the world and I think she finds comfort in them. I was willing to give her whatever at that point and was thankful something finally worked!

She has still been off during the days and although she went to sleep well last night, she has been grumpier than normal during the day. Livi and I both have colds so maybe Sofie is fighting something too… although she doesn’t seem sick at all and hasn’t had a fever.

I wonder if this random difficult week has something to do with some kind of memory. Sometimes when people have endured a traumatic experience, they will sort of relive it each year around the same time of year. Sofie has been abused, in more ways than one. We will never know the full extent of her neglect and abuse. We can just hope to help her heal. It will be really interesting to see if this same behavior repeats itself next February.

Livi has been so empathetic and caring towards Sofie this week with all her outbursts. It’s been really sweet to see. I’ve been a little more up front with Livi about Sofie’s history. I think she is mature enough to handle some of it. We approached Sofie’s small size as her being a baby, when we first brought her home but this week I explained to Livi that Sofie is actually 3 years old just like her, but because she didn’t get enough food and love in Bulgaria she didn’t grow. Then as Livi witnessed her sister awake screaming from a terrible nightmare at nap time, I explained to her that some bad things happened to Sofie in the orphanage before she came home to us so she has bad dreams about it sometimes. Livi tenderly put her hand on Sofie’s forehead, she was laying on her bed recuperating, and turned to me to say “I think we shouldn’t send her back to Bulgaria. She should stay home with us.” Good idea Livi!

What else can I tell you?

1. I went to a tax seminar on Saturday morning to learn about different benefits and credits for people with special needs. I learned a lot and loved it! I’m such a geek.

2. We got our first delivery from the At Home program. They are now, for free, delivering Pediasure, diapers and wipes to our door for Sofie! Hooray! 

3. My lifestyle change went really well for the first 4 weeks. I lost and have kept 15 pounds off. Then I went to a party on a Saturday night, ate leftovers from the party on the Sunday and had Valentine’s treats a few days later. I pulled a muscle while working out too so I decided to take a week off and start with the “reset” part again. I then got sick a few days before my restart day and haven’t gotten back but planning too! With 15 pounds down in 4 weeks how can I not do it again?!

4. I bought Livi a Dora work kit which has her practicing numbers, letters, shapes, and colors. She is loving it and I love how proud she is when she completes a work page! The other day we were all sitting around the table doing our “work”. I was filling out more of Sofie’s forms, Livi was doing the number pages and Sofie was coloring on the magna-doodle! For over 30 min! Crazy! And I was amazed at how well Sofie was doing and showing interest in coloring. She is developing SO fast!

5. We had Sofie’s second attempt at her hearing appointment today. She was too distracted to pay any attention to the sound prompts the first time. Sofie gave better readings today but still scored slightly below the normal hearing level. The audiologists were trying to tell me this second reading was conclusive. I’m not convinced. The good thing is whether or not she has real hearing loss or not, it is not enough to do anything about at this point 🙂 We will monitor it and the next check up will be in 3 months.

6. Sofie is now caught up with all her immunizations! Just today. She did great and didn’t cry even though she got 4 shots! The worst part for her is being restrained, not the needles.

I think that’s it. I’ll try to take more pictures for you. I’ve had a few comments about lack of pictures on my posts lately 🙂 February/March always seem to be dry picture months. Once we get outside with nice weather again I’m sure I’ll be more inspired!