Sleep Issues

Adapting to the school schedule is not going so well. Granted, the kids have only been in school for a week. But if things don't settle down soon I may lose my mind. This morning I went in to wake up the girls and had to physically drag B out of bed and undress her. She did manage to get her clothes on before she went into her now-normal crying fit. I put her shoes and socks on for her while she wailed like it was the end of the world. Then I left her with a bowl of cereal that she only picked at since she was still crying. Next, I went to try to force J out of bed for the third time. That boy is harder to get out of bed than B-- only he doesn't cry (usually) so it's a little less nerve-grating.

When I came out into the living room again it was blissfully quiet. B had stopped howling. But then I saw why. She was sitting on the couch fast asleep, her cereal bowl toppled over next to her. Before I could deal with that, K padded out into the living room and started up his own wailing. By this time I wanted to pull my hair out. The goal is to get the older kids up without K waking up, but M had decided to go into the boys' room and turn on the lights for some reason. Aaargh! (K is on an impossible sleep schedule himself. He won't nap at a normal, early time. But inevitably he falls asleep in the late afternoon, which means he won't go to bed at a reasonable hour either.)

J put off getting his shoes on until the last minute and refused to eat any breakfast until I had threatened him (then he decided to eat one piece of bread with the crusts pulled off). I had woken B up again to eat, but when it was time for family prayer Terence found her asleep again on the living room floor.

Let me tell you, it was an immense relief to usher all three older kids into Kristi's car this morning!

Part of the challenge is my own fault. I can't seem to go to sleep at a decent hour myself. It leaves me exhausted and irritable much of the day. But when night rolls around, do I go to bed right after the kids? Nope. Between the nightly heartburn and the overwhelming anxiety/fears that attack me each evening, I can't seem to shut down enough to get to sleep, especially since I'm generally hot and uncomfortable as well. The anxiety doesn't fall into the more serious category of panic attacks, but every night when I should be winding down I start to get stressed about all the things on my plate (or that will be on my list in the near future). Then the fear kicks in. Fears about everything: something awful happening to one of the kids, something happening to the baby before she's born, the baby having problems after she's born, not being able to pay the bills, Terence keeling over from a heart attack, the politicians driving our country off a cliff, zombies wiping out civilization . . . . (OK, that last one is not very likely but I've had nightmares about it after reading a thoroughly depressing novel about it).

Oh dear.

Anyway, as you can see, we have some sleep challenges to work through. Fingers crossed that as the days start getting shorter some of this will naturally get easier!