Midnight Gremlins

Tiernan's bedtime/overnight issues discussed in an earlier post persist. He's still having a hard time letting go of the day and embracing sleep. We have nightly tantrums and tears when its time to hit the sheets. But the bedtime bedlam is the least of the problems...
Back in July when I first reported Tiernan's sleep issues, I took SuperNanny's advice and did a chart with a great reward. The deal was, if Tiernan when to sleep without fuss and stayed in bed all night for seven straight days, we would take him to play mini-golf.

Previous trips to the mini-golf course were disasterous. Three-year-old just don't grasp the subtle nuances of golf. He wouldn't wait to hit the ball. He would hit the ball and just run after it and keep hitting it until he got it in the hole. He would strike the ball so hard it would fly two or three holes away. (It reminded me of myself on a real course.) He was so excited he would just run after the ball whereever it was. Luckily, we were the only people on the course at the time. Additional issues of Reagan running after Tiernan made it our first trip to the mini-golf course a virtual hacker-hell for parental-players. I was way off my game.
But Tiernan loved it. He keeps asking to go back. We told him that he can't go back until he learns to play by the rules. Which brought on a lengthy, troubling and enlightening conversation about rules and the need to follow them. Tiernan, being three, didn't understand the need for rules. And by the end of the conversation, I wasn't so sure I did either. The boy can be persausive.

But back to the sleep chart and the reward. My thinking was that, if Tiernan can follow the rules by going to sleep at the bedtime and staying in bed, he would show us that he's learned to follow the rules, earning a trip to play mini-golf.

And it seemed to work, for six nights. On the seventh night, Tiernan decided that he was missing too much by going to bed at the appointed time and no longer wished to follow the rules. We urged him to go to bed, and that if he did we would go play mini-golf. But he said, "I don't want to play mini-golf, anymore." He would forfit mini-golf to stay up and have a temper tantrum. So much for SuperNanny.

So the boy keeps fighting us at bedtime, which is bad, but he keeps getting out of his bed and climbing into bed with Mom and Dad, which is worse. I've moved him back to his bed seven times in the last two nights.

Last night, I was laying in bed in that strange world when dreams start but the subconcious is still aware of the waking world. There I am with one foot in dreamland and the other in my bedroom and I heard the pitter-patter of feet. In dreamland the sound like gremlin feet. Pitter, pitter, pitter, pitter. And I form a picture of the gremlin from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons.


The gremlin enters the room, stops on my wive's side of the bed, looks for an area to cause trouble, but moves on, pitter-pitter-pitter, around the bottom of the bed, pitter-pitter-pitter, to my side of the bed. The gremlin then reaches out and pushes my over so he can climb up into the bed. Since I am now well asleep, just roll over instead of directing the gremlin back to his own bed. An hour or two later when I need to roll over or move. I find I am constricted in my movements by something or somebody. It is the little gremlin. An now that I am awake I can bring him back to his own bed.

But the funniest part of this whole episode, is that every time in gets out of bed and leaves his room, he closes the door behind him. As if he's not going back. First he opens the door to get out and then he takes the time to close it again. This kid doesn't close the bathroom door most of the time.