Have to restrain your kids every single night?

[Alisonlg]

Do the rest of you have to restrain your g'sfg every single night too?

Gosh...I'm just so physically exhausted...and here I was wondering earlier why my neck and shoulders are so tight and sore. Every single night is a battle going to bed for difficult child 1. We keep it routine, we keep it calm, and we do our best to make it an easy, smooth transition, but it seems no matter what we try as soon as the clock strikes 9 pm (bedtime) the switch goes off and difficult child gets a big smirk on his face and goes into meltdown mode.

He runs around the house, he bangs on the floor/doors, he screams, he does whatever he needs to do to refuse to stay in his room and be quiet for bedtime...which results in us physically having to bring him back to his room and physically hold him in his room. Tonight, I ended up getting punched in the eye, but luckily it wasn't hard enough to leave a mark.

I kept thinking over and over in my head...what could we do differently? Well, what would the school Social Worker do...she would ask him what he needed to do to wind down to go to bed I bet....well, we already tried that...husband offered him the opportunity to stay in his bed and play quietly for 1/2 hr before having to lay down...he didn't even take advantage of the full 1/2 hr before he started running around the house. Then I thought, what would the psychiatric hospital do? Well, they would demand he stay in his room...which is what we do...and when he starts his rage of either destroying his things or leaving the room, they'd remove him to the "quiet room"....well darn, we don't have one of those....so we can only remove him back to his room. Then, if he wouldn't stay in the quiet room or he posed a danger to himself or staff, they'd restrain him...which is what we do (only funny thing...they train STAFF on how to safely and EFFECTIVELY restrain a difficult child, but NOT parents...?!?!?)...and if/when he doesn't calm down, they'd give him a PRN....we don't have a PRN. Lovely. SO WHAT THE HECK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?

ARG! I'm so sick and tired of doing this every single night and having all of these "professionals" invovled in our lives and not ONE of them giving us any actual HELP.

Ok...I'm tired and I'm tense and I just had to get that off my chest and see if we were the only ones going through this. If any of you have any suggestions on what we could be doing differently, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[JJJ]

We still have our 8-yr old co-sleep because whenever we try to get him to sleep in his own room, our house looks like you just described. Will he lie down with you??

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

You know, I can totally relate. I used to have to lay down in bed with my difficult child and hold her for 2 hours till she fell asleep. As she got older I tried weaning her off of that but she wound up coming into my room every night. A chart worked for awhile, shere if she stayed in her own room all week she got a slurpee. But even that stopped after awhile because she would just give her dad the puppy-dog-eyes when she went to visit him and he would buy her one.

One day I found a bunch of girly bedroom stuff on clearance (sheets, blanket, canopy, pillows) and bought them up. I allowed her the opportunity to earn them by staying in her room. By her 5th birthday, she had earned all the cool bedroom stuff and had stopped giving me grief at bedtime. Well, for the most part anyways. She does not know how to spell yet, but now she has a reading lamp, and if it's bedtime and she is not quite tired yet, I will allow her to "write in her diary" for 15 or so minutes until lights out.

Now, I know that these are all very girly things, and I do not know the first thing about little boys. But if there is a similar path you could take that would make bedtime more enjoyable, he may cooperate better. I also guessed that part of my difficult child's apprehension of going to bed was that she was afraid she was going to miss out on something. I make it a point to read quietly until she is asleep so that she does not think I am doind something "fun" without her.

Hugs and best of luck to you.

 

[totoro]

It is so hard. Before difficult child 1 was started on her first AP we were restraining her sometimes 2 times a day. Up to an hour at times... it was so tiring. Same thing no one seemed to have any answers, out therapist did show us the proper way to restrain her though, which helped.

It seems like for difficult child 1 the AP helps tire her out at night, we also do all of the recommended calming techniques as well, yoga, reading, baths etc.
She does get amped up at night as well, but at least now we are able to get her tired by bedtime!

Sorry we didn't have much luck before this, and we have sound machine, weighted blanket, aromatherapy etc. they help with the night terrors!

Good luck

 

[Wiped Out]

I'm sorry-I know how exhausting it can be. Our difficult child would be up til all hours-he really couldn't get to sleep and it was such a battle. For us we had to end up using medications to help him sleep. I didn't want to but he would stay awake til 11 or 12 each night which wasn't healthy for him. For us it was the only thing that ended the bedtime struggle.

 

[oceans]

I'm surprised that the Zyprexa does not help him sleep. It is really helping mine. Before that we just made sure he could not get on the computer, but his sleep pattern was flipping around all over the place. Our difficult child is over 200 lbs so restraining has not been an option for quite some time. There are medications that will assist in sleep. We discussed it with the sleep study dr. we saw, but never tried them. The problem we had is that sometimes he would sleep for 16 hrs at a time and we could not get him up, and sometimes could not sleep at all during the night. Perhaps yours would benefit from those kind of medications since it seems to be a consistent problem each night. With us we felt that the sleep was beyond his or our control, so at the time we did not fight with him. We just did whatever we needed to make certain he had nothing fun and stimulating to do, so that we were not providing him with entertainment when we all knew it was sleep time.

 

[oceans]

I'm surprised that the Zyprexa does not help him sleep. It is really helping mine. Before that we just made sure he could not get on the computer, but his sleep pattern was flipping around all over the place. Our difficult child is over 200 lbs so restraining has not been an option for quite some time. There are medications that will assist in sleep. We discussed it with the sleep study dr. we saw, but never tried them. The problem we had is that sometimes he would sleep for 16 hrs at a time and we could not get him up, and sometimes could not sleep at all during the night. Perhaps yours would benefit from those kind of medications since it seems to be a consistent problem each night. With us we felt that the sleep was beyond his or our control, so at the time we did not fight with him. We just did whatever we needed to make certain he had nothing fun and stimulating to do, so that we were not providing him with entertainment when we all knew it was sleep time.

 

[timer lady]

kt for, 3 or 4 years, slept on our couch in the living room. It took time & practice to get her sleeping in her room on a nightly basis.

Our transition to bed takes a long time - kt is up in her room by 7:30 on school nights & her television goes off by 8:45. I know that many have issues with tv's in a kids room, but it's the one thing that keeps kt in her bedroom. Many nights I sit in a rocking chair just rocking & reading my own book, while she settles by playing or watching television. Once tv is off I sit & rub her back until asleep.

Getting kt to her room & asleep has taken us a good 4 years. We decided that it wasn't worth the nightly battle to "insist" that kt sleep in her bed, put on pj's (many times she sleeps in her clothes) or brush her teeth before bed. If every night is a battle nobody sleeps well.

Zyrexa (kt is on the same dose) can be calming - does he take it before bedtime? Does a shower or bath help with calming; a cup of herbal tea with a snack? Just thinking out loud for you here.

I know this battle - know how tired you are. I hope you can find difficult child a calm routine each night.

 

[BusynMember]

When my son wouldn't sleep in his room, we just let him sleep wherever he fell asleep. Wasn't worth the tears and fights. Usually he'd crash on the living room sofa.

 

[nlg319]

I'm with timer lady...it just isn't worth the battle. I learned the hard way with my 1st two, so with difficult child#3, I let him sleep in his clothes, just underpants, whatever. He was in our bed for the longest time. He's back in his bed. Our routine is that he picks 3 or 4 books. I read to him in his bed. I lay down with him and he falls asleep. Most nights go smoothly, and some nights he just keeps talking, laughing, and basically anything except sleep. I hope you find something that works.

 

[Alisonlg]

Thanks to all of you for your responses. I feel SO much better just knowing that I'm not alone...that I'm not the only one that has had to restrain my child.

He takes his evening dose of Zyprexa at 8 pm and we start the bedtime routine at that time...bath with aromatherapy salts (Treasures of the Sea- which are touted to have a great benefit for children with ADD/ADHD, Autism, etc), pajamas, and brushing teeth...since his psychiatric hospital discharge, this routine *usually* goes relatively smoothly...but it's still when the clock hits 9 pm and he realizes it's "bedtime" that the switch goes off and he freaks.

Of course, we're currently in the process of paying full price out of pocket for the Zyprexa because the Insurance is refusing to pay for the 5 mg a day dose...so, we'll see how long he even stays on that.

 

[jannie]

What about melatonin? I've never used it, but many here say that is works wonders getting kids to fall asleep. That is purchased at vitamin store.

 

[canadianmom1]

I have a battle with difficult child every night. We have given up and let him drop when he drops. That way my daughter can gt some sleep. He has never slept more than a few hours at a time unless he was sick. It's just one battle that I can't fight right now.

 

[OpenWindow]

I gave up the bedtime battle a long time ago too. We let difficult child sleep wherever he fell asleep, usually it was on the floor in front of the TV. For awhile it was in our bedroom on the floor. The last year (he's 10), we've been able to send him to his room with some books (he LOVES to read). I try to send him to bed with his books about an hour before bedtime, but it doesn't always work that way, especially during daylight savings time. We gave him a booklight for Christmas and he uses it after I tell him it's time to turn off the lights.

difficult child doesn't change into pajamas. If he didn't have a bath he just goes to sleep in whatever he had on.