Well what do you know? After months of Josiah sleeping relatively well, we are back to partying til the wee hours of the morning. This boy just does not sleep at night. Seems no matter how tired and lethargic he may act during the day, once 8 pm hits, he comes to life. The sky gets dark, the world begins to settle down and Josiah revs up.
From that point on, it spirals out of control. He starts out slowly, making vocalizations and bouncing on his knees all around the house. And by about 1 in the morning he works himself up to a frenzy. His arms start shaking, his body begins to vibrate and he is in his own little world.
Last night he actually had both legs ramrod straight up in the air with both arms out at his side, head tilted back just shaking. Laughing, hysterically and shaking. When Josiah gets that intense, it’s best to keep your distance. One never knows what will happen next.
If we could just create a boundary line around his room maybe with some bright colored duct tape and teach him to stay ‘in the zone’ when he’s out of control, it would help tremendously.
If we had borderlines that he knew he just could not cross, I’d place one at the entrance to the kitchen and another at the entrance to our bedroom.
It would probably take weeks of training to shape his behavior, to teach him ‘Do Not Cross the Yellow Line’ but it would be worth it. It’s just not safe to have the boy roaming around the house in a frenzied state, especially when the rest of the household happens to be sleeping and hasn’t clued in yet that he’s up and about.
Hard to imagine we could ever sleep through the noises and the commotion he so enjoys sometimes, but we’ve learned to do just that. Most often however, Rick and I tag team through Josiah’s sleepless nights. We take shifts and try our best to calm him and help him fall asleep.
He seems to do much better with Rick than with me. For some reason, Josiah becomes a Sumo Wrestler when I enter his room. The last few nights, he’s been in attack mode. He dives on top of me, lunges for my hair and has even scratched my face and neck while laughing hysterically as if he’s enjoying the ‘game’.
I do my best to defend myself but as I’ve mentioned before this kid has super human strength.
The best mode of defense is escape. So last night, I instituted a barricade. As soon as I freed myself from his grip, I made my escape. I pushed past his over sized bean bag chair I had been sitting in seconds before the attack and squeezed through the double doors.
Then I quickly pulled the bean bag into position to block him from following me out the door.
He tried repeatedly to get past it but it’s just too big and heavy for him to move (at least for now). I was free.
I stayed close by in the living room so I could hear him. Eventually, around 5:30 am, Josiah fell asleep. I’m totally loving this barricade idea. Keeps him in, me out and ideally, allows Rick and I to get some much needed sleep. However, a couple of hours later, when it was time to wake Josiah for school, we discovered he had a full pull-up that had spilled out into his pajamas.
He was messy and his room was stinky.
Josiah was however, sleeping! Poor kid. At some point after I left his room, he needed my attention and my help in the bathroom. But how was I to know? It’s too risky for me to stay in his room with him when he’s as hyper as he was last night. It’s also not fair for him not to have his needs met.
So, I’ve got this one figured out. May take me a couple of weeks to gather the materials. And, I may have to watch a few you tube videos to get it just right. But, I’m determined.
Josiah’s just needs a small addition to his bedroom.
