Sleep Deprivation

Who'd have ever thought that there would be sleep deprivation with a three-year-old? I don't know if it's that common or uncommon, but I swore by three we'd be getting some sleep around here!

Mr. L has been on a sleep strike, if you will, for the past month. The worse of it are the night terrors, which strike 3-4 times a week, always between 11 PM and midnight and sometimes come at 30 min intervals until about 3 AM. That's the worst of it. The more annoying acts have been downright refusing naps (though he still needs them), fighting furiously to go to sleep at night, refusing to sleep in his room/bed. He's now sleeping on a queen sized air mattress in our room because no way, no how is he sleeping in my bed. I can't sleep when he does (then again, I haven't been sleeping much this way, either...)

It's awful and stressful and frustrating. Sleep deprivation royally sucks. I don't know how I'd be able to handle two kids going through this.

We've taken him to the doctor. Physically, he was fine. No ear infection. No cold. No organic reason not to sleep. So it's behavioral. But night terrors are not nightmares. He's not scared of something specifically (though he was going through his "I'm scared of monsters/ghosts/dark" phase). There's nothing we can do about night terrors except disrupt the sleep cycle. That's what the pediatrician and all the articles online say. Disrupt the sleep cycle. One-to-two hours after he goes to sleep, wake him up. Night terrors occur in the REM cycle of sleep and it's apparently in the family of sleep walking and sleep talking (if I remember correctly), so the only option is, yep, disrupt that sucker.

Of course, to make matters more interesting, because it always has to get interesting, he's now sick. Now, I'm not going to complain about him getting sick. He's done much better this semester and this is the first time this semester he gets really sick. He got a minor cold a week into school, but it was minor. No fever. This time, though. Man. Fever (high 101's). Coughing (croupy last night, dry during the day). Congestion (but not really a runny nose). Appetite shot. Whiney. He feels crummy. So the last two nights we gave him Tylenol/Advil combo and disrupted his sleep cycle. No night terrors. We don't know, however, if that's because of the Tylenol or because of the disruption of the sleep cycle.

I'm just hoping things settle down quickly. I need sleep. I don't function well without it, and considering I have to function at work (and in the drive), I need to sleep.