papzombie,
I have real sympathy for you in dealing with the kids sleep problems.
Our oldest (daughter) was a night owl from the time she was born---the fact that she gave up her 6:00AM feeding before she gave up her 3:00AM feeding was an early hint. And she was extremely frightened of the dark as well. My son was not as much of a problem. Both of them, however, loathed bedtime and getting them to bed when they were in preschool was a problem at times.
papzombie wrote:I heard that letting light on is not good for the kid (some chemicals are not generated under the light).
Yeah. The chemical is melatonin. But here's the thing: It's not going to kill your kid if s/he sleeps in his/her room with the light on if that's the kid's preference. It may change their circadian rhythm a bit, but if sleeping with a light allows the kid to get themselves to sleep in his/her room and helps s/he get back to sleep without needing your assistance, then it may be an overall plus for everybody to just leave the light on for the kid. In other words, if waking up alone
in the dark in his/her own room is the problem, then it's worth seeing if leaving the light in the kid's room on helps fix the problem.
As I said, my daughter was really frightened of the dark when she was young. And she was a pretty severe night owl from the time she was an infant. I had a 50 minute commute to work at the time and was frequently teaching classes that started at 8:00 or 9:00am, so my own sleep was on a much earlier schedule than it is now. By the time my daughter was about 2, my hubby and I would put daughter to bed (in her room) with her stuffed toys and her picture books and the light on around the time I needed to get to bed and we would tell her: You can stay up and play with your stuffed toys and look at your books for as long you want to, but you have to stay in your own bed and you can't expect us to come in just because you're lonely. She usually would look at her books and "read" them to her stuffed toys for 20 minutes or more at the beginning of the night before she fell asleep. If she woke up, she learned to get herself back to sleep by "reading" her books to the stuffed toys rather than crying for us. By the time she was about 8 or 9 she finally started turning the light out *sometimes* when she went to bed, but she still took books to bed with her. By the time she was a teenager, she had gotten to where she remembered to turn the light off most of the time, but she still took books to bed with her. She's now in her late 20s and sleeps well in the dark most nights, but even now she can sleep just fine with a lot of light in the room as long as she's got books in her bed. (And yes, she still sleeps with books in her bed.)
You also write:
2) If we don't sleep with the kids
- The 2-y.o. child would cry a bit when he wakes up and does not find the pacifier --> actually I could find the way to fix the pacifier to something, or to train this kid to sleep without the pacifier
Our kids were really attached to their pacifiers when they were 0-10 months old, but both of them gave the pacifier up around 10 months on their own. I do remember that we loaded up the crib with lots of pacifiers (as in about 6-8 of them) when each of them was still sleeping with a pacifier in their mouth in the hopes that if the kid woke without a pacifier, that s/he would be able to find one before starting to cry. I think it worked at least part of the time by the time they were around 6 months old or so. But there is a big difference between a 6 month old's attachment to a pacifier and a 2 year old's: The 6 month old is not likely to be able to tell
which pacifier s/he found, and any pacifier of the same basic type is likely to satisfy them, but a 2 year old can tell the difference between pacifiers and s/he may want only their one, preferred pacifier.
3) We do admit that we don't know the optimal way to deal with the kid. About sleeping we have to lie down with them (especially the 2-y.o. kid) to let him sleep.
A regular bed time routine can help. My hubby and I were not great at doing routines, but we did find that more we could stick with a meaningful routine, the easier bedtime was. The trick seems to be that the bedtime routine has to start well before the kid is actually getting sleepy or tired---it's easy for young children to get over tired and that can key them up and make it
harder for kid to fall asleep on their own.
Both our kids loved being read to from the time they were about 1 year old through about age 8 or 9. So the biggest part of our bedtime routine was to have plenty of story time on the living room couch. We often would read to them for a full hour before putting them to bed. Since our kids hated baths, bath time was NOT part of our bedtime routine---taking a bath really keyed them up and it was harder to get them to sleep after fighting at bath time. So we always tried to get baths in early in the evening and well before the kids' bedtimes. But a lot of kids like baths and find them relaxing. So if your kids like baths, incorporate that into the bedtime routine. A lot of parents try to make "picking up the toys" or some other small chore part of the bedtime routine. In our house that failed miserably since it resulted in the kids getting stubborn about it and the nagging/fussying about it wound up winding both me and the kids up even more, and made it harder for all of us to get to sleep.
We have many times tried sitting next to him, hold his hand while he lies in his bed, but we do face two problems
- My wife cannot let this guy sleep: he has too much energy and upon seeing that his mother is there would continue jumping around, is very active up to 1 hour after the supposed sleep time. My wife is also tired after a working day and cannot afford that stress caused by this kid.
As I said before, after our daughter was potty trained we had to use the rule, "You can stay up in your own bed playing with your stuffed toys and your books as long as you want to, but you cannot get out of bed and bother us after bedtime." If she called out or started to cry after we went to bed, we would call out to her and tell her: "If you need to go to the bathroom, you can do that without us. Otherwise, please settle down so we can sleep." (Our bedroom was directly across the hall from hers and both her bedroom door and ours were open.)
- I am often very tired starting from 20:00, the time I let this 2-y.o. sleep. So it would cost me too much energy to sooth him if I don't lie down next to him and let he lie on my hand. Imagine I would have two options. Option 1 is to sit next to him and hold his hand while he is in his bed, during this time I would read my phone and that makes me also very tired as I have the tendency to read any kind of crappy news on facebook and online newspaper just to avoid the void and tiredness in me. Option 2 is to train him by letting he cry a bit, then come and sooth him a bit and go away for a while, but this guy can cry upto the point he vomits, which would cost me extra energy to clean things up. At around 20:00 I am often already tired and I like to lie down as well.
Why not try Option 3: Starting at around 19:30 invite the 2 year old to sit by you on the couch in the living room and snuggle up and chat with him while you are snuggling on the couch about
his day and what he did during the day. And once he's done telling you about his day, read a story to him. You'll need to start with a very short story since he may not have much of an attention span. You can also increase his attention span for being read to by asking him questions about the pictures in the storybook and what he thinks is going to happen next. And after story time is over and it's getting to be 20:00 or 20:15, take him to his bed and tell him that he doesn't have to go to sleep, but that it is time for him to play with his stuffed toys in his bed for a while. Tell him he can play in his bed as long as he wants to, but that he does have to play by himself. And tell him that you'll check in on him in 15 or 20 minutes.
In other words, it's possible that the 2 year old is rambunctious because he wants some high quality one-on-one time with one of his parents. And it's possible that the fact that he knows he is supposed to be asleep and he can't get to sleep is what works himself up to crying to the point of vomiting if you simply try to let him cry it out. It's possible that if you gave him permission to play quietly in his own bed (with the light on), that he wouldn't get so worked up about it being bedtime.
I know there is something missing in my educating the kid and setting rythm to myself, but I don't know a better way.
It's counterintuitive, but give the little guy a bit more "control" of his own circadian rhythm: Let him play quietly in his own bed for a while with the light on, and check on him every 15 or 20 minutes---even if he's NOT crying---just to say "Hi" and to remind him that he has to stay in the bed while he's playing. My guess is that he will fall asleep after playing in bed for about 30-40 minutes---if he is NOT over tired and over wound up about it being "time to sleep", and he may start falling asleep after playing in his own bed without any need for you to lie down next to him and soothe him.
PS: None of the kids are sleepy during the day. The 2-y.o. is always very active the whole day, and the 5-y.o. is quieter, but only complain about tiredness around 19:30-20:00 (he does not sleep after lunch, and wakes up at 7:00 AM). So I don't think of children OSA.
That's good news.
