Parents Tired and grumpy vs wide awake!

[MaryA]

I'm guessing that most of us here are parents of at least one very high-energy kid. As most of you know, my girls are twins, and from day 1 Kathy has needed less sleep than her sister, and has been slower to fall asleep too. As most of you also know, Kathy recently switched gyms and doubled her hours. On nights she has gym, she often comes home exhausted and grumpy, adding fuel to my husband's argument that the hours are too much for her. However, on the one weeknight that she doesn't have gym, she lies in bed for ages unable to sleep (in spite of the fact that she was doing handstands and cartwheels during dinner. Me: I don't think normal families let their children do cartwheels during dinner. Her: No, probably not.)

I'm not sure if this is a question or a vent or what, but there's got to be some middle ground between "biting your head off" and "bouncing off the walls." As I type, she is upstairs lying in bed, wide awake an hour past her bedtime.

Heavy sigh.

I do understand the homeschooling gym parents better now. It's not necessarily because you think that your kid is going to the Olympics and needs to devote every waking moment to the sport. It may just be because there may be enough hours in the day to do school and homework and gym and family time and eat and sleep... But not if you have to stick to a traditional school schedule.

Another heavy sigh.

 

[2gymmies]

I completely understand where you are coming from! My older dd has one weeknight off too and we constantly tell her it is "catch up" night and she cannot seem to catch up on anything! We try to get her in bed a little early but she just can't do it! I'm at the point where I'm going to give up the battle because I'm not going to win. I'm always telling her to get ahead on test prep on her "catch up" night, but all she seems to do is text friends, watch tv and say mom, I'm bored! I guess alittle of that is ok, too!

I haven't found any middle ground - fill me in when you figure it out!

I however don't think I could ever sanely consider homeschool! It takes a special person and a special relationship with your child to be able to successfully manage that task - I'm not willing to try at this point, but many love it and swear by it - to each their own!

 

[txgymfan]

MaryA, So glad Kathy is happy in her new gym. If she is bouncing off walls and driving you up one you could tell her to run (up and down stairs if you have them or to the back of the yard, or the end of the block) for ten minutes see if that cools her down. Something far less than gym but more energetic than being bored.

2 gymmies Since your dd is so used to structure of a gym practice perhaps you could structure her catch up night. She could have X number of rotations with a time for each. Her rotations could be homework, reading, test prep, long term projects etc. Perhaps with a timed break inbetween. Some people get much more done with a plan for their time. As for getting to bed early, without the gym workout I don't think it would happen.

Good luck to you both!

 

[Deanna]

Aww. I do understand. Although I have no answers. I too will be watching this thread for advice. Kadee is like this also. She just goes goes goes. She lays in bed for a couple hours most nights until she finally falls asleep. Although I must say once she is out..she is out. A 200 piece marching band could come through her room and she wouldnt even stir.
I always read when I go to bed. That's what relaxes me (and shuts off my brain from the constant thoughts of what I forgot to do, or need to do..ect.). She asked me a couple days ago if she could take one of her Junie B books to bed and read. I said "sure" thinking..it works for me, and she's going to be awake for a couple hours anyway..what's it going to hurt. After about 30 mins, I peeked in and she was sleeping away. So, I let her do it again tonight..and again after about 30 mins she was sleeping.
Now I dont know at 6 what thoughts she could have at night that would keep her awake for 2 hrs that reading would shut that down. But for now, it's working. 30mins is so much better than 2 hrs. For now, I will take what I can get..lol

 

[Deleted member D3987]

"we don't need no ed-u-ca-tion...bumbudum...bumbumbumbudum leave those kids alone"

for some reason pink floyd came to mind here. i have no idea why...

 

[ginnymac]

My dd, now 12, often has 'falling asleep issues' and grumpy-ness, particularly at the beginning of the school year. We have found that the new schedule, teachers, etc... is a difficult adjustment for her. To tell you the truth, it is usually around Thanksgiving time that everything seems to fall in place for her.

We have done a couple of things to help with this. 1. We had a conversation about her 'grumpy' attitude. I have told her that everyone is tired at the end of the day and that by being disagreeable, it makes me think that she can not handle her schedule. Would she like to quit? Of course the answer is no, so I suggest that she think about her behavior.
2. We have downloaded some soothing type sleep music onto her ipod for her to fall asleep to. This has helped her a lot (in her opinion.) 3. No tv for the last 30-45 minutes before bed. Now she rarely has time for any tv during the school week, but in the past had watched a half an hour or so after homework, just before bed, but that is gone now. She has replaced it with either reading or playing a quiet game or just sitting and talking to anyone in our family. It is much more calming or her. 4. Pushed bedtime back 15 minutes or so. I think that it is better that she not lay in bed getting frustrated that she can't fall asleep. Better to get in bed a bit later and fall asleep sooner, kwim?

Good luck, hopefully she will regroup soon. Like I said, it is usually around Thanksgiving that I feel that my dd is back on a good schedule, although this year it is feeling like we might make it a little sooner. We have been having a lot of good nights lately and it is only Halloween time

 

[my4buffaloes]

It took about 2 months for my dd to adjust when she doubled her hours. When my younger dd started gym this summer at 3 hours a day (2x a week) she was a bear to live with on those days - doing nothing but cry over every little thing. After a few weeks she was back to normal, but when school started the first couple of weeks of school and gym days we went through it again. Now she is back to normal and is used to it. Kathy will get used to the higher hours as well.

I have no idea what to tell you on the off days because we deal with that too. Tuesday night dd was up until 10 by the time she got home from gym, finished dinner, showered, etc. So Wednesday night we made her go to bed at her normal time of 8:30 and she kept popping out of her room for one thing or another until 10 when we went to bed. It is so frustrating because then come 7:30 when I have to wake her up she is a nightmare to deal with because she is tired. I feel like I can't win!

 

[JessMom]

I'm curious hold old your daughter is. Sounds like my 14 year old. She doesn't seem to be able to fall asleep no matter what she does during the day before a certain time . . . that time is honestly unknown to me because I'm asleep by the time she's even showered. I do know most of the time she's in bed studying...really, if studying doesn't put you to sleep nothing will. And grumpy, although not acceptable or tolerated comes with the age.

The little one is 10 and bounces off the wall until she's in bed with the TV on for 5 minutes. She actually doesn't have TV she has a DVD player. She watches the first few minutes of the same handful of movies every night. It really works for her. Unfortunately she doesn't stay down - as our resident sleep walker she's usually wondering around needing an escort back to bed at some point.

As for days not in the gym . . . she usually does the warm up / stretch / conditioning / line drills and beam drills in the living room while watching TV. She was home with strep last week and was mad it was "arm strength day" and there was no bar up.

And finally, you have cartwheels at dinner . . . our house it's dances and handstands. No one can sit still for a meal at home - thankfully they can if we go out . . .maybe we should go out more often!

 

[Chocoholic]

Have you tried melatonin? It really helps my son and me for that matter to fall asleep. It's a natural supplement and available over the counter.

 

[bogwoppit]

My 12 year old sounds just like Kathy. On cheer nights she gets home at 10pm,long night, and is asleep so fast. On the other nights she can lay awake for hours. For a while she was also waking in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep, so she was exhausted. She is not a pleasant child when underslept and I am glad that has improved somewhat.

I find mine is much better when she has had some physical activity and try to keep that in mind, hunger can also make things really ugly with her, so I encourage healthy grazing to keep her going.

I amnot sure what the solution is, but consistency and schedule are mine. On non cheer nights she goes to bed at the same time no matter what. SHe wakes at the same time, no matter what. Even if she cannot sleep she stays in her bed. It doesn't take much to mess her up, so we have found that sticking with the schedule makes all our lives more pleasant.

They do grow out of this, and if they don't...they do leave home!

 

[maryRS]

Sounds very similar to my daughter. My daughter plays soccer in addition to gymnastics so she is going all the time. After dealing a little too much with this grumpiness in the morning and her running around the last 5 minutes before the bus comes to get out the door, my husband really insisted on an earlier bedtime on the nights when she can. She argued about not being able to fall asleep and he said he'd rather have her up there resting, even if she is listening to her IPOD or something than being in the family room doing handstands and watching tv. My friend, who is a pediatrician, told me that she agreed with my husband and said it will take time. She may lay up there tossing and turning for a week or even a month, but eventually her body will adjust. I know it's not that simple in all cases, but for the most part, if she goes up at 8:30-9:00 she generally falls asleep shortly thereafter. Of course because of her schedule she can't do this all nights, but on the nights she can we do now insist. Sometimes I will lay upstairs with her and if I do she falls right to sleep (problem is so do I lol). Is she less grumpy in the morning? Eh, only slightly, but I do think it makes an improvement on the rest of her day. She had told me before she was falling to sleep in the car on the way to gym (her friend's mom drove). She doesn't do that anymore, so I guess it is a little better. I think their little bodies are just so used to going all the time, and add that to their personality and their high energy level, it's hard for them to shut down.

I'm guessing that most of us here are parents of at least one very high-energy kid. As most of you know, my girls are twins, and from day 1 Kathy has needed less sleep than her sister, and has been slower to fall asleep too. As most of you also know, Kathy recently switched gyms and doubled her hours. On nights she has gym, she often comes home exhausted and grumpy, adding fuel to my husband's argument that the hours are too much for her. However, on the one weeknight that she doesn't have gym, she lies in bed for ages unable to sleep (in spite of the fact that she was doing handstands and cartwheels during dinner. Me: I don't think normal families let their children do cartwheels during dinner. Her: No, probably not.)

I'm not sure if this is a question or a vent or what, but there's got to be some middle ground between "biting your head off" and "bouncing off the walls." As I type, she is upstairs lying in bed, wide awake an hour past her bedtime.

Heavy sigh.

I do understand the homeschooling gym parents better now. It's not necessarily because you think that your kid is going to the Olympics and needs to devote every waking moment to the sport. It may just be because there may be enough hours in the day to do school and homework and gym and family time and eat and sleep... But not if you have to stick to a traditional school schedule.

Another heavy sigh.

 

[JessMom]

They do grow out of this, and if they don't...they do leave home!

LOL Every time the teenager gives us a hard time I think the same thing!

 

[gym monkeys mom]

Have you tried melatonin? It really helps my son and me for that matter to fall asleep. It's a natural supplement and available over the counter.

This is a great supplement...HOWEVER it should not be taken without consulting a MD or Homeopath/Naturapath/Chiropractor. My understainding is you need to take a holiday from it sometimes.

Just because it is over the counter does not mean it is ok to just start taking it without supervision from a medical professional knows about it.

I apologize if I sound to preachy but supplements are unregulated but eaqualy as dangerous if taken unsupervised as prescription meds.


Getting off my soap box now........

Sorry about the sleep issues I have found my kids go through cycles where sometimes they sleep better than others. best of luck to you. Balance is hard!

 

[MaryA]

Wow! So much good advice and commiseration! I love this site!

The rule is (theoretically) in bed with a book by 8:30, lights out by 9:00 (of course, that doesn't work on Mondays when she doesn't get home from the gym till 8:30-8:45). That down-time with a book really does seem to help. I think TV was part of the issue last night. We don't have cable, but last night there was a show on PBS about snakes. Animals, especially reptiles and amphibians, are Kathy's other great love after gymnastics (she has a pet bearded dragon). And this is an interest she shares with my husband, who was formerly a wildlife biologist. Since my husband is not a huge fan of the gym thing, I didn't feel like I could say anything about the TV-watching-before-bedtime thing. So she went to bed at 9:00 after watching an hour of TV (granted, this show would have put ME to sleep, but PBS documentaries about python overpopulation in the Florida Keys are not really within my area of interest).

We've tried children's chewable melatonin with Kathy before, with no noticable results.

I do have a guided relaxation recording on my MP3 player that I will use with Kathy when she has a real problem falling asleep (often on nights before a meet when she's over-the-moon excited/nervous). It often works, though not always.

She will be 11 in February, and I'm have plenty of friends with daughters the same age who complain about them being grumpy, so I know it's not necessarily tied to gymnastics. I think part of it is that when someone else gives her a ride home, she is pretty quiet on the way home (about a half-hour) and is probably half alseep when she gets home and that adds to the grumpy factor. When I drive her home and engage her in conversation on the way home, she seems better.

We have had conversations with her about it. Specifically conversations like, "You know that your dad thinks you've taken on too many hours in gymnastics, and when you come home and bite our heads off, you prove him right. If this continues, we're going to need to talk about Prep-Op or some other way to reduce your hours." I CAN tell that she's trying. And when I'm tired, I'm grumpy too, so I don't feel like I can be too hard on her.

I guess we just need to accept that there IS no perfect family dynamic and that there will always be give-and-take and cartwheels during dinner and grumpy evenings and too many pythons in the Florida Keys eating the endangered Wood Rats.

 

[rsm]

My DD is still little, but it did take a couple months to adjust to doubling her hours and for the grumpiness to end. We did the tired and grumpy, and breakdowns for a few weeks and it got old pretty quick. It helped to have a snack in the car right after gym (e.g. apple, grapes, or string cheese for her) and avoid any known triggers (like dinner she doesn't like). But the main thing was just waiting it out and having her body get used to the increased pressures.

My DS also has issues falling asleep some nights. And I will say, like others, that allowing him to read until he gets tired has been the best remedy for us so far, along with making sure he does not sleep too late in the morning. DD is too little (and wound up) to read by herself so I try to calm her down before going to bed, but doesn't always work. Getting her to bed a little earlier when she's tired though, works well for her.

 

[gym law mom]

You may just have to push her bedtime back even 15 minutes or so since she has at least 1 night when she's going to bed after 9pm. Sleep experts recommend no tv or commputers within 30-45 minutes of sleep since it stimulates certain areas of the brain. They also suggest keeping the same sleep and wake up times or as close as possible 7 days/week which would mean no staying up late on the weekends or sleeping in. It most likley will be trial and error with her to see what works. My gymmie always has her iPod on at bedtime---says it helps her fall asleep.

 

[mariposa]

Not giving medical advice, just sharing what works in our house. We use the Hyland's Calmes Forte. I have had insomnia for years and recently went through the loss of a family member and it really helped me. It doesn't make you sleepy, but it does help with the anxiety, etc, that is causing you to not be able to fall asleep. Usually I am VERY sleepy, but my mind can't turn off.

I recently tried it with my gymmie as she was having some sleep issues due to our family's loss and it helped her as well.

Definitely research anything you give your child (or yourself!) or check with the family doctor. Even natural remedies can be dangerous if not taken properly.

Having a bedtime routine to get relaxed really helps me, a nice warm bath with some lavender in it, a cup of hot Sleepytime tea, too. My kiddo likes warm milk (which I think is disgusting).

Hope you figure it out! My daughter comes home sometimes totally hyper and others grouchy (usually from hunger) and it does make winding down difficult.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

My 12 year old sounds just like Kathy. On cheer nights she gets home at 10pm,long night, and is asleep so fast. On the other nights she can lay awake for hours. For a while she was also waking in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep, so she was exhausted. She is not a pleasant child when underslept and I am glad that has improved somewhat.

I find mine is much better when she has had some physical activity and try to keep that in mind, hunger can also make things really ugly with her, so I encourage healthy grazing to keep her going.

I amnot sure what the solution is, but consistency and schedule are mine. On non cheer nights she goes to bed at the same time no matter what. SHe wakes at the same time, no matter what. Even if she cannot sleep she stays in her bed. It doesn't take much to mess her up, so we have found that sticking with the schedule makes all our lives more pleasant.

They do grow out of this, and if they don't...they do leave home![/QUOTE]

hahahahahahahaha! they sure do!

 

[TexasRose]

DD has this problem too. She has activities 3 days a week until 8pm, whether it's dance or gym. No problem getting to sleep these nights. But the other days of the week it's a fight to get her in bed by 2100, and I would really like her to be in bed earlier than that because she's up at 0600 in the mornings. I haven't tried the calming music, I'll try that. We stopped allowing her to watch TV during the week so I don't think that's the problem. There's some great info on this thread!

 

[BlairBob]

As a coach I have heard for years from parents that their kids always went to bed easier and slept well on gymnastic days/evenings. I'm sure other coaches have heard this.

I could talk about dopamine, acetylcholine, GABA, or serotonin but I think your kid just hasn't got her energy out for the day. Simple solution, get her to do something active even if you want the night in. Let her play DDR on her Wii or whatever.

Some ways to get to sleep easier or to decrease light and mental stimulation one hour before bed. That means tv, video games, and computer time though tv is probably the least stimulating of those threee. Another solution is to start dimming the lights down.