You know what I’m talking about.  You tuck that sweet little angel into bed, and two minutes later, she’s standing at the bottom of the stairs saying she needs to tell you something, then she has to rack her brains for something to say.  Or she’s in her sister’s room bugging her and runs like the dickens and jumps back in her bed so that she can say “I’m not in her room”, little knowing that she can be heard thumping down the hall and diving into her bed.

My Angel has what I call boomerang bum.  The minute you turn your back, she’s out of bed and trying to come up with reasons to stay up.  It’s usually worse when SpecialDad is not home at bedtime.  I guess I can’t pull off scary as well as he can.   What can I say, Angel’s a mover and a shaker, especially at bed time.  The only nights she stays in bed are the ones when she’s really, really tired, and even then, she’ll fight it. We try to give her some heavy input in the evening to help her to settle down, but it doesn’t always work.  The last few days, using the melatonin, this child has stayed in bed and even gone to sleep!  No calling to me that she can’t sleep or she needs to talk to me, not even once!  I put her in bed, I go downstairs to spend time with Big Kid and when we go back up, Angel is out like a light.   It’s an amazing difference.  And SpecialDad hasn’t even been home 2 of the 3 nights at bed time.

It’s certainly helped to reduce my stress level (my usual reactions are to try to get her back to bed or to ignore her until she goes back on her own, neither one is easy to do) and I think it’s helped Angel’s stress level too. It’s not fun to be yelled at or to have Mommy mad at you and it’s hard to keep finding excuses to be out of bed. This is just day 3 and I’ve got her on the lowest dose. I don’t want to keep her on this for long, but it seems to be helping a lot.