I’m used to long nights.  I tend to stay up all night long and sleep in the mornings.  It’s an atypical sleep schedule, but then again a lot of my life could be described as atypical.

One of the benefits of being a night owl is that I am able to get more writing done while the house is quiet.  At least, that’s the plan.  But that plan hasn’t been working so well lately.

When I started writing this post at 10 PM, the little boys had been in bed for half an hour ago.  By “in bed,” I mean I tucked them into bed, made sure their bedroom lights were off, and closed their doors.  They did not stay in bed.  In fact, when I started this post they were both jumping around, making quite a bit of noise, while I sat in the hall between their rooms praying they’d go to sleep sooner rather than later.

Last night Ben was awake until 1:30 in the morning.  When this first started I stuck with my “ignore them as long as they stay upstairs” routine.  Last year, every time I went up to tell the boys to stay in their beds it seemed to add half an hour to however long it took them to sleep.  I’m just that exciting, I guess.  So, I made a practice of ignoring them unless they came downstairs.  There’s nothing particularly dangerous upstairs, so that strategy worked for a while.

But, lately, Ben’s been running into Alex’s room.  If Alex is awake, too, then they’ll jump on the beds together.  If Alex is already asleep, Ben will scratch at his face until he wakes up.  So, here I sit in the hallway between their rooms.  I’ve tried lavender baths, I’ve tried lavender oils in their rooms, I’ve tried laying down with them, swaddling them, yelling at them, whispering to them, singing to them, and many other tactics that have worked well over the years. 

Now nothing seems to work.  Ben will tell himself stories for as long as he can, and Alex will play in the dark as long as he can, and they’ll both resist sleep until they each fall to the floor of complete and utter exhaustion.  This can take until 2 or 3 in the morning on the worst nights.

To say the least I haven’t been getting as much work done as I’d like.  More importantly, the boys haven’t been getting as much sleep as they need.  Their behavior has been affected—more aggression, shorter tempers, and more sensory processing challenges.  But I’ve tried everything I idea I’ve had and nothing has had a measurable, consistent affect on their ability to fall asleep sooner.  (The only thing I haven’t tried is melatonin.  But, despite assurances that it comes in an easily dispensed liquid form, I haven’t found it yet.  Pills just won’t happen.  As it is, we’ll be wrestling with the boys just to get a liquid medicine down their throats.  So, for now, melatonin is off the menu.)

With me here, Alex calms down pretty well.  But Ben keeps going and going—jabbering away to himself, opening the door every few moments, bouncing between his couch and the bed his big brother has long since abandoned.  I sit here in a child-sized chair as a sentinel, because I don’t have the patience tonight to make yet another failing attempt to calm him down.  Instead, I just wait him out.

Luckily I’m used to staying up late.  Luckily I have a husband who gets up with the kids in the morning.  Luckily I have a laptop I can bring upstairs with me so I have something I can do while I sit in my child-sized chair in the semi-darkness (like an over-sized moth, Ben is attracted to lights). 

Then, finally, at about 12:15 in the morning, roughly three hours after I put Ben to bed, he finally quiets down.  I wait just a little bit longer and go in to check on him (and return the child-sized chair to his room).  He’s asleep.  A sense of freedom washes over me.  I can go downstairs without the risk that Ben will pop into Alex’s room and scratch at his face.  I can go downstairs without worrying about whether Ben is going to stay in his room, follow me downstairs, or play with the pump-action bath soaps in the bathroom.  In short, I can finally go downstairs and that is good.  Now I just have to pick up the house and I can get back to work.