Serious Sleeping Issues

I have happier things to blog about soon, but this is not a happy post.  My worst fear in having two children was messing up Brayden's sleep schedule and helping them both sleep in the same room alright.  Nap time has become no problem other than Zander fighting it, but I can hand that.  Bedtime, on the other hand, is just as bad as I had imagined it could be some nights and some nights are awesome.  Unfortunately the awesome nights are few and far between.  Zander is now on a pretty good bedtime schedule where he is ready and able to be put to sleep around 7 or 8.  He still wakes up most nights around 530, but sometimes makes it til 7.  Brayden on the other hand will not fall asleep until at least 930.  We try putting him to bed at 7 and he'll fight it for two hours.  And because they share a room, Zander usually gets woken up and so we struggle with getting both of them to go back to bed until about 930.  It's incredibly exhausting! I'm at a loss of what to do for Brayden!  He used to be pretty good, but ever since coming home from Utah in January he's been a bit off.  We got him back on track for a little bit, but not for long.

Last night we started bedtime about 7:15 and left their room about 7:45, maybe 8.  Zander was asleep and Brayden was in bed.  15 minutes later Brayden comes out saying he wants to play the guitar (we had just pulled ours out for the first time in a while).  After getting him back in bed he cryed and woke Zander up.  So Preston bounced Zander while I snuggled Brayden trying to keep him quiet and get him sleepy.  Failed attempt.  We decided to just leave them both in there and see if they'd fall asleep.  For an hour and a half they were both playing with each other.  It would have been cute if it weren't past bedtime.  We watched them on our video monitor the whole time and finally went in to get them in bed.  We locked the door when we left so that Brayden would go to sleep, but he stayed up for another hour just being crazy!  He runs around in his room, lays on his bed for a while, then gets off and throws a fit, etc.  It's just craziness.  I was trying to fall asleep at 11:15 watching Brayden on the monitor wondering how he has so much energy. I wanted to be asleep an hour before, but I just can't fall asleep until B does.  At least B was able to sleep through Zander's crying for 20 minutes this morning at 4:30, but for whatever reason, he woke up and came out at 5:45!  Brayden needs more sleep than that, but he couldn't find his binky and neither could I.  He actually went to sleep without it last night because he had tossed it somewhere during a fit and we didn't go in to get it.  Anyway, he was awake until 7.  Now what do I do?  Let him sleep in or just wake him up and start over?

 Preston was talking about how B might be ADHD or something, but we also have a couple other ideas.  We've decided to cut his juice consumption.  He has been getting way too much juice since my Mom gave him his first taste at 6 months.  The sugar is definitely not helping.  It will be a horrible couple of days as far as that goes, but he'll just have to get used to water or milk.  We also think that part of the problem is his iron level.  He's always low when he gets checked (which he must get from me) and that can make you very tired.  Because he's very tired, he sleeps for 3-4 hours during nap.  Sometimes he doesn't wake up until 5, so of course he's not ready for bed at 7.  I can't find a toddler iron supplement, but we'll at least try to get him to eat more meat and wake him up from nap at 230.  Hopefully that will help.

Even though it seems obvious, I've recently realized that this lack of post-bedtime time is causing personal and marital strife right now.  I find myself feeling so needy of personal time to do hobbies or blog or whatever that I have started wasting time on the computer to give a little relief to that need, but in the end it leaves me feeling worse because I'm not spending the time I should with the kids or on the house.  Preston and I aren't having big issues by any means, but it seems like we're just not quite on the same page all the time.  I think it's because we have no time to talk about things or make plans or share thoughts.   We don't have any alone time except for whatever nap overlap we get on Saturday and Sunday.  It's not good for our relationship.  I could tell something's been missing and getting worse, but couldn't put my finger on it until now.  This is really serious.  We need to fix it.  Now.  So, besides the diet, waking Brayden up from nap and cutting juice, please let me know if you have any tricks that have worked for you.  I feel slightly desperate.