Terrors

I am not sure if I started something that I am going to have a hard time breaking, but at the time, it seemed right.

On Saturday night, after the aborted ER trip, Jack was not feeling well and didn't want to sleep in his bed. So because he was sick and all, I relented and told him he could sleep with me in the guest bedroom. He was suddenly very happy and perky with the prospect of sleeping in the big bed. And let me tell you, it was NOT a good nights sleep for me because the kid takes up 3/4 of a queen size bed - easily.

Yesterday, he was still not feeling well and was running a low fever pretty much all day long. He took a nap which lasted a good 3-4 hours until almost 5:00 last night. So that meant that at 8:00 when it was bedtime, he was NOT ready to go to bed. So I let him stay up after a couple failed attempts at putting him to bed. He was running around until 10:00 pm, despite my attempts at getting him to settle down. I kept telling him he needed to go to sleep or no school today. I thought bribery would work, espcially since it involved school and the possibility of not going. But that didn't even work. At 10, I took him into his room and told him he had to stay in bed and go to sleep. I left the light on, as I have to do now every night, and walked out the door. I watched him for a couple of minutes in there and I could plainly see that the boy is absolutely terrified of being in his room alone, even with the bright light on. And within a minute, he was screaming for me.

So again, I let him sleep with me in the guest bedroom, mainly because I myself was exhausted and need to sleep. And again, an almost no-sleep night for me. He was awake and crying for me several times during the night and then at one point he actually fell off the bed. And this bed is quite high up and I am sure it did not feel good doing that.

Now I am really wondering what to do about him being terrified of sleeping in his room. I don't want to spend the next few weeks or months having to sleep with him. Because quite frankly, I need more sleep than that will afford me. But at the same time, I don't want to terrorize the poor boy. This all started after Laura left and she told him about closet monsters and such. Argh.

Also, today was picture day at his school. He is having his very first school picture taken. And he was so excited about that. We even had a discussion about it during the night last night. He woke up and I told him that he needed to go back to sleep or no school and no pictures. He did not like that and then went on to tell me what he wanted to wear today for his pictures. He kept going on about "his nice new pants and new shirt". And was especially concerned about his hair. Oh geesh we are going through the teen years already as far as grooming goes.