There has been much drama in the Herzoff household this week. Calin watched a cartoon that scared him and has had a hard time sleeping ever since. And so I'm forced into the uncharted territory of childhood sleep problems. This is completely unlike Calin, he's always fallen asleep within 10 minutes of laying down and has never needed more than a simple song, hug, and kiss. He is also waking throughout the night telling us he is scared.
Darin has given him a priesthood blessing and we've talked about how prayer and the Holy Ghost can comfort him. We have been giving him extra love and attention to help him feel safe and secure and we've done our best to validate his feelings. I taught him that if we squeezed each other real tight it would fill up his heart with mommy so he wouldn't be alone (along with the thought that Heavenly Father is always with him of course).
We have called upon the magical powers of Superman to protect him. I found clearanced Superman wall borders and decals so now he has "millions" of Supermans to protect him. He also has his Superman sheets, jammies, and undies.
I'm also trying out TV bribes to motivate him. He doesn't watch much TV so I promised if he goes to bed and stays there he'll get to watch TV the next day.
Yesterday we talked about bedtime all day and took him to the playground to run out all of his energy. I got him a dim nightlight for his room (the bright one we had was a bit too much of a shock to his system since he has slept in the dark since birth).
All of this plus 20 minutes of extra love and assurance and he went to bed just fine last night (finally!). He woke up 3 times throughout the night for hugs to fill up his heart again and resisted going back to bed. We praised him and gave him a few reminders and he was back in bed without much fuss.
Hopefully now we can convince him to stay in bed when he wakes. We'll see. Tonight I'm going to try teaching him a visualization technique to help him relax. He isn't having much success with pushing the bad thoughts out of his head so hopefully this will help him more than just telling him to sing a song or say a prayer.
Anyone have any other suggestions? We'll take all the advice we can get.
Naiya trying on her new princess tiara and earrings, part of her Halloween costume
And look, proof that fall is actually on it's way! This tree in my back yard is finally starting to change.
3 comments:
Remember how I told you I just got my parents magazine and it has a big article on potty training? Well, it also has a big article on nightmares/night terrors. Perhaps you can see if your library has that magazine and you can copy the article, otherwise, I will just mail it to you.
Tell Calin i'll keep him in my prayers too.
Hi Kate!! It's Tracy from MC. Your kids are too cute and Naiya's hair has grown so much!! I was just checking your myspace and found the blog link. I made me one too! http://planetpayne.blogspot.com/
Kate, It's your long lost sister Keri. Hey here is what we did when Kenz woke scared. She thought there were monsters in her room so we got monster spray. I got a cheap water bottle filled with colored h2o. (food color) When it was bedtime I sprayed all over her room. This scared the monsters away because they don't like water. As the night went on, she had the water bottle and if a monster came she could spray it. Be prepared for wet floors in the morning but she didn't come get me. Here's another tip. Don't fill the bottle too much they will spray it all!!!
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