Frustration

You probably won't be surprised to hear that Noah has a full comprehension of the word "frustrated." I tend to use it a lot around him. He has not slept in his bed for an entire night since mid-October. I can't even keep track of the roller coaster ride it's been, but the gist is that he has night terrors, which wake him up in a panic. I believe this led to him not falling asleep at night (intentionally)--he always wants Chris and me to watch TV in the living room for awhile after he is put to bed. He listens intently for us to go to bed, and we went through a period of him going into the bathroom under the ruse of needing to pee, but then he would stay in there and cry for us to put him back to bed. Over and over. Then, we started punishing him for this and it became a huge battle every night, cycling back to night terrors again. Finally, I put a pallet on our floor and told him if he has a nightmare, he can quietly come to our room and sleep on his pallet. This was working pretty well until he again started waiting up for us to go to bed in order to come sleep on the pallet, because, of course, that's where he'd rather be. All this time he maintains that he is "scared" of his room. (Trust me, we've tried it all--dogs sleeping with him, lights on, lights off, music playing, monster spray, stuffed animals, swords...) So now I am frustrated and fresh out of solutions, except to threaten him, wait him out (hoping he'll fall asleep before I go to bed), and then try to bribe him to stay in his bed all night.

Fast forward to this evening--I asked him to get some toys off my bed because I wanted to change the sheets. He matter-of-factly stated, "Mom, don't put my pallet up, though, because I'm going to have a nightmare tonight." ?!?!?! I said, "Noah, you don't WANT to have nightmares! You need to sleep all night in your bed!" and sighed hopelessly. Noah shrugged, shook his head, and said, "Nothing works on me, Mom."

Smarty pants.