I Am So Frustrated...

C has been on another of her "not sleeping" kicks. She seems to go through cycles of sleeplessness... Or rather, she seems to go through cycles of sleeping. Most of the time she has sleepless nights. I can't get a grip on her cycles. I can't help but wonder if her sleeplessness comes in conjunction with a huge change or not. It seems like it does much of the time but then I wonder why these cycles last so long.

Here's my dilemma: Because she is deaf when C is awake at night she doesn't know how loud she is, so she laughs and talks out loud and plays with her toys as if nobody else in the house was sleeping. She could care less; or so it seems. And nothing I do about it helps. Literally.

Here are some of the things I've tried: Putting her into timeout when she's playing; making her go to bed early the next night; taking away the toys she was playing with. I have even tried the opposite (but only if she doesn't play with her toys and is quiet for the other people in the house): Allowing her to stay awake as long as she wants; allowing her to read books when she's awake. I know there is more but these are the things I've done most... None of which has encouraged her to sleep (or, more importantly, lay peacefully in bed when she can't sleep so the rest of the household doesn't get disturbed all night).

So, if anyone has any other ideas or tricks up their sleeves, I'm more than open to ideas! I will make one request, though... No medications. C has been on the timed release Melatonin quite a lot. It doesn't work for her. And I just can't see putting a 6 year old on a sleeping pill when she functions fairly well with what little sleep she does get. It's the rest of us who have a problem with her sleeping habits. And, if we could put her at one end of the house and us at the other it would be fine because then her restlessness wouldn't be so counterproductive for the rest of us.

In addition to C's sleeping probelms, I'm noticing more and more homework issues. She's beginning to "cheat" on doing her home work. I, quite literally, have to watch her like a hawk so that she doesn't skip sentences or pages for her reading assignments. And she just blots down numbers for her subtraction work. I can't figure out if her issue is a sudden feeling of insecurity due to having a new baby brother or if she's confused or if she's just being lazy so she can go play... She's so dang smart, but seriously, she's taking the route that makes less work for her when she's not being monitored. So, it seems I'm just going to have to stand right on top of her in order to get her to do her homework properly. Anyone have any ideas here, too?

To top things off, in the past couple of months C has begun ignoring my directions. If I tell her to do something she has begun just blowing me off. Oh, she doesn't do it all the time (not like M), but come on... She's changing. It suddenly hit me (as I was typing this ) that it's almost like she's starting to go through puberty! Hmmm... I wonder?!?

God how I love this girl, but she is driving me bonkers!!! ;) UGH!!!