Sleep deprivation

Oh. My. Word.
I don't know what to do!
Usually, I don't like to be a complainer all the time here. But I just need to grouch. I can be honest here, right?

We need sleep help!

Let's use last night as an example. We put the boys to bed at 8:30 (a little late for NB because of church). And at 9:30 when we were in bed, I could still hear both of them awake. NB, especially, prefers not to go to sleep, so he really works to keep himself awake sometimes---making noise, pulling out toys, trying to open his door, etc. Alright, so I fall asleep a little after ten, I think. As far as I know the boys were asleep then. At 4:30, I am woken up by one of them yelling, I think it's NB but I'm not sure. I do my best to go back to sleep after ascertaining that it's not a yell of pain or fright. I wake up again at 5:30, hearing the front door close, then hearing PJ5 open his door. I know the front door must be PJ leaving, although this is an hour before he usually leaves. (I haven't checked with him, but he probably left early just because he was awake and didn't want to try to sleep for 45 minutes.....he's done that before.) I get up, since I hear PJ5 opening his door and making noise. Finding PJ5 in the kitchen, I tell him it's not time to get up and it's still bedtime. I escort him to his room, turn on his bedtime CD, and close the door. He doesn't protest, so I count my blessings and go back to bed. My alarm goes off at 6:30. I groggily go through my morning routine, then wake up NB at 7:00 to get him fed and ready for the bus, which arrives at 7:20 (approx.). PJ5 comes out of his room when he hears the bus pull up and acts like he wants to go out the door. I tell him this is his brother's turn to get on the bus and he will get on later, while trying to get NB out the door and PJ5 to stay in. I'm afraid that PJ5 will get really tired later and fall asleep this afternoon, which will make it harder for him to go to sleep at bedtime.

In explanation, usually PJ5 sleeps in 'til at least 8 or 8:30. And I don't mind if he wakes up when I'm up and getting NB ready. Actually, it's probably good, because he will need to get up that early this fall.

No, it's the early, early wakings that need to stop. And it's not always PJ5 that wakes in the middle of the night. Over the last week, the two boys have alternated waking us in the middle of the night....at least 5 nights out of 7. Hubby and I are both tired alot. Last Friday someone at work asked him if he had been staying up late because he was so tired. I keep having to take out my contacts and wear my glasses because my eyes are tired and irritated. Sometimes, when PJ5 wakes up in the middle of the night, he will stay up for an hour or more, then go back to sleep and sleep-in late. When NB wakes up, he also takes a long time to go back to sleep, then it's hard to get him up in the morning for school.

It's not unusual for people with autism to have sleep issues. Some parents say their kids just don't need as much sleep as others. But I don't buy into that. How can someone function on too little sleep? Some parents of young adults with autism, make their schedules fit their child's sleeping habits, but you can't do that when your kids are school age and have to keep some kind of schedule.

Some parents give their kids melatonin to help, but I'm not sure how much to give for kids this small. I tried it once. It's also hard to disguise "medicine" with PJ5. If you put it in a drink he can tell. The best ways I've discovered for him are peanut butter or applesauce. But there's no guarantee that he will want one of those right before bedtime. I guess I'll try it again and see if it helps. NB fights sleep so hard that last night I said to hubby, "maybe I need to train him to calm down and relax and fall asleep". He's always gone to sleep on his own since he was around a year old. I don't want to make him dependent on me for getting to sleep, but I also want him (and me) to sleep!

This is the main reason that we don't make the boys share a room. They rarely both wake up on the same night, and we don't want them to start waking each other up. This summer we will be going on a vacation, and for a week or more all four of us will share a room at night. I'm trying to figure out how to make it work. If one boy wakes up, should one parent take them out of the room so the other doesn't wake? Then how will the awake child get back to sleep? Never mind, I haven't had enough sleep to try to figure that out right now. We shared a hotel room a couple of months ago and it took a long time to get everyone settled down to sleep, especially NB. Then in the morning, PJ5 woke up early (6-ish, I think) and I tried to keep him from waking up NB, but only succeeded for about 30 minutes. We were all tired the next day. I can't see that happening for a full week.

This also does not help my insomnia problems, but I'm not going into that right now. Another time.