THERE’S not many of
us getting a decent night’s sleep at the moment in our house, and it’s hard to
work out what to do. One of our foster children, a boy, takes ages to get to
sleep so he doesn’t want to go to bed when it’s his time, because he’s going to
be lying awake for two hours or more. I was talking about this with another mum
outside school this morning. I said that getting a child into bed is one thing,
but there’s nothing you can do to make them go to sleep. She disagreed.
SHE reckoned that if you get them in bed, lights out, and
tell them they have to lie there and be quiet and close their eyes and be
still, they’ll be asleep sooner rather than later.
SHE’S a doctor, this mum, very nice lady I like her a lot. She’s
funny, and she looks after her children really well. But she’s never fostered,
so I just smiled and said something like “I’ll try that, thanks”.
WHEN our own children were little they got the idea that
downstairs was off limits once they’d been put to bed, but if they had a real
problem they could call down to us. My
social worker says that many fostered children have been allowed to stay up
until the adults went to bed, however young they were. Apparently this is
usually done because the parents can’t be bothered with the hard work of
supervising bedtime, so they let the children potter around the house until
they are asleep standing up.
ONCE in bed though, the children often have all sorts of
horrible thoughts about their past, on top of which they’re in a strange home,
and they’ve got no reason to think we are going to be any different from the
adults they’ve been used to. I suppose
it takes a long time to develop trust in new adults.
WE go to bed about 10.30, Bill and I. Sometimes he stays up
if he’s not tired. I go up on tiptoe, but there’s almost always something going
on upstairs. Nothing to worry about, just someone awake and quite keen to let
you know they’re awake too. But it means you are going to bed and there’s
someone you are responsible for, still awake.
THAT puts you into a light sleep, if any sleep at all.
SO suddenly you’re awake and you don’t know what woke you
up, or what time it is. It feels like about midnight. If Bill is asleep I try
to let him sleep on, but I can hear somebody either out of bed or making enough
tiny noises to give that impression. So I creep across the pitch black bedroom
and put on my dressing gown. Open the bedroom door, and there is someone
standing by their own bedroom door, looking sad; “I’m thirsty”.
SO you fetch a drink from downstairs, say a gentle goodnight
and creep back to bed.
THEN you are awake again, this time about four. Somebody is
going to the bathroom. This is good, it shows they feel at home. You stay awake
to listen and make sure they get back to their room.
I have found foster children to be light sleepers. I have
found that it’s infectious, and you end up with a houseful of light sleepers.
ANYWAY, I’ve reached the age where you tend to be awake
before six, and can’t go back to sleep.
OF course, because they don’t sleep well, they can be a
handful on a school morning, complaining they don’t want to get up, and are too
tired. I honestly find that making a joke of the whole thing works best. I say
to them “What is it with being a child? They make you go to bed when you’re
wide awake, and get up when you’re fast asleep”
I’LL be honest, I’m napping in the day, in the front room, nodding
off watching This Morning and waking up with A Place In The Sun on. It helps.
THEY, on the other hand, nod off in the car, any journey
over about 15 minutes. It helps too.
BUT the best tip I was given , to stay ahead in fostering,
if they’ve had a rough day, and given you a bit of a rough day too, is to stand
at their bedroom door when they are asleep, and see how being asleep reveals
their angelic, peaceful side. Every child, fast asleep, looks like butter
wouldn’t melt.
Happy Fostering
0 comments:
Post a Comment