Twenty four - the sleep in story

Sleep ins are VERY rare events at my house. REAL sleep ins (ie. post 10am) are non existent - I have totally reconciled myself to the fact that these are now relegated firmly to my pre-offspring past, when I pulled a blinder and had nothing to worry about on a Sunday except getting up in time for University (God, THOSE were the days!) or work on Monday morning.

Even as a married-with-no-kids-twenty-something the REAL sleep in was still an option; the washing could wait, dinner could be McDonalds/Pizza/Fish and Chips....there was no reason to deprive myself of a good, solid block of sleep.

These days the blinders happen maybe once or twice a year (and as a divorced parent, the one benefit, I have to say, is having the 'day after' on a non-custodial weekend to sleep if I'm stupid enough to misbehave the night before), but the joys of parenthood - as anyone will tell you - can often have one feeling like they've been on a blinder for months. The tiredness, the weariness, the exhaustedness, the never ending desire to just once, PLEASE, have a couple of extra hours' sleep. Particularly on a weekend. When there is no reason to rise at 5:30am. No work. No school.

Well ladies and gents, today I FINALLY got my 'sleep in'. I use the quotation marks because I actually mean that I got to stay in bed until 8am this morning. And yes, my Cherub WAS actually at home with me.

We have a rule in our house: On weekends Cherub cannot come wake me until 7am (this, as you may have guessed already is classed as a 'sleep in' at my place). He is allowed to get up if he wakes, but if the clock says it is earlier than 7am, he cannot come into my room and wake me up.

And, of course, being autistic, he feels it quite reasonable that if I don't explicitly remind him of 'the rule' the night before, then there musn't be one this weekend. I have been caught twice on that one now (with the 'But you didn't say that it was the 7am rule last night when we went to bed"). I now make sure that I tell him the very last thing on a Friday night as I tuck him in and kiss his forehead: "Now, remember, no getting out of bed until the clock says 7:00am".

And then I take myself off to bed in the hope that he follows that instruction.

Last night, however, I went to bed KNOWING that he would not be up and about before 7:00am, in fact KNOWING that he would not be up and about before 8:00am.

Because last night, just as I gave him that kiss on the forehead, I surreptitiously set his clock back one hour.

And it worked.

I got a sleep in.

Whoops, have to go - he's coming into the room and may read this over my shoulder. This is one 'behaviour strategy' that I do NOT want him to cotton on to.

Talk later

Janeane
xx