Must. Sleep.

In the course of a normal sleep cycle, you "wake up" and immediately fall asleep a few times a night. Most of the time, this waking up isn't enough to pull you out of your sleep and you don't even remember it.

Shaggy's sleep cycle has her waking up every night around midnight or as late as 1:30am. When she wakes up, she'll whimper or cry for us to fix something for her. Often, she goes back to sleep immediately if we go in and cover her back up. But at least 40% of the time, she won't go right back to sleep and is up anywhere from one to three hours.

She will cry - which we can tolerate to a point (we don't want her waking up her brother). She will get out of bed and open her door (we have an old house with crystal doorknobs and those doorknob covers don't fit). She will rattle her door (which would wake up her brother if we didn't stop it). She will sing. She will shout for us. Bottom line, when she's awake, we don't go back to sleep until she's back down and asleep.

I cannot take it anymore! Every day, I'm more and more exhausted. I'm continuously grouchy and crabby. My eyes can barely stay open when I drive. I can't formulate sentences to speak. I snap at my children all the time. I snap at my husband and get frustrated with him for things that aren't his fault. I'm so weary all the time that I feel like I'm walking through sand. I make mistakes all the time over stupid stuff. I don't even have the energy for phone conversations. My brain is mush and I feel numb all the time.

I try to take naps while the kids are down but more often than not, they just aren't satisfying and make me feel worse when I wake up. Going to bed earlier at night would be a good idea but I hate it. I hate going to bed at 10pm. I'll just read until 2am, waiting for Shaggy to wake up.

The solution is to make her sleep through the night. I have no idea how to break this cycle. All I know is that for my own sanity, something's got to give and fast.