How Many Psychotherapists Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb?

Ask any new Mom what she really wants and the answer has to be SLEEP. Honey, just skip the wine and dine, flowers, chocolates, diamonds(for later)and just watch the junior partners for a few hours so I can sleep. Although we were so excited about adopting Gracie, our biggest fear was reliving the sleepless nights we had experienced with Lil. Tony seems to be a little more tolerant of sleepless nights related to his occupation, but me, ooh la la...if I don't sleep, think pitbull.

We knew jetlag would be an issue for all of us, but the baby, Tony and I got ourselves turned around within the week. Lil, however has been a different story.
Lil likes routine. Same thing, same time everyday would suit her just fine. So there isn't a time zone that we could travel to that would have messed with her as much as travelling to China. Except in China, she slept great.

Once home, she was up most of the night rumaging around in her room, up to the bathroom several times and not quiet about it. Toilet flush, drag the footstool across the floor to the sink...wash hands, mess about, run back to the room. By morning, she and I haven't slept much which was an unhappy combination. An hour to get through a bowl of cheerios later, and I'm ready to take her to school in her PJ's. She's so tired she can't remember what she's doing from minute to minute but by bedtime she says, "I'm not tired" and "Why is night so long?" and then throws a five alarm hissy fit. The next morning it starts all over again...for six weeks now.

We think maybe its about sibling rivalry...sharing the spotlight. But she really likes Grace, Grace just isn't too keen on her for all the screaming and noisemaking she does. She won't let us close her bedroom door, so I start diagnosing. Could it be anxiety disorder, monsters, too much sugar, bladder problems? We have a committee meeting, do group therapy at the dinner table, reread psych 601. We set up a behavioral modification system: stickers on the calendar, rewards of snacks, leapster, tv, dietary changes. Nothing works.

Yesterday as I was turning off a "starlight" we put in the hall outside her bedroom I thought, maybe the light is keeping her awake...the melatonin thing. So I unscrewed the lightbulb just enough so it would no longer operate and let her know that the light was out of commission. (Aren't mothers devious?) Tony shares in the fraud..."Those kinds of lightbulbs are very hard to find". She wasn't happy about it and had a big hissy fit, but slept all night. No toilet flushes. No handstands in her room. This morning she ate her cheerios in 15 minutes, left for school bouncing. Time to throw out the psych books.