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My nephew just started kindergarten. Thankfully, they aren't taking him out of school for visits ... but they are still planning to do them afterwards. The problem is that he has sibling visits and there is a lot of driving. So the visit won't even end until 7:30 PM. If he gets dropped off at home as usual, then he won't be home until 9 PM. We can (and will) pick him up, but even then he won't be home until 8 PM. At that point, we still have to feed him dinner and give him a bath. (The bath is mandatory, he smells disgusting after visits.) He also mainly eats vast quantities of sugar during the visits so he also has to come down from his sugar high. So even if we picked him up from his visit the very earliest he would fall asleep would be around 9 PM.
The problem with this ... he needs to be asleep no later than 7:30 PM to get enough sleep. Maybe that extra hour and a half of sleep doesn't sound like a big deal, but I know from experience that even an hour off for him makes a huge difference. He is not the kind of kid who can just sleep later the next morning to make up for it -- he ALWAYS without fail wakes up by 7 AM (if he's still asleep after 7:30 the first thing we do when he wakes up is take his temperature, because usually that means he's sick). And if he doesn't get enough sleep he is a nightmare the next day. He has behavior problems as it is, but deprive him of some sleep and it gets 100x worse. And the visits are on school nights, so that means he'll have that kind of behavior in school.
Unfortunately although some of the visit supervisors do work on weekends they are refusing to assign one of the weekend workers for this case. I seriously think it's because they're expecting TPR to be imminent and don't want to "waste" weekend visits on a hopeless cause.
the GAL is trying to get visits stopped but DHS is insisting on doing them until (if) TPR is granted. I have argued my nephew's case over and over (which is why GAL is fighting for me) but to no avail.
Has anyone else had problems with visits being too late at night? I know many people complain about visits always being at naptime (which we also had a problem with for the first year, until thankfully my nephew outgrew naps), but haven't noticed anyone having this problem.
I am just so angry about this. It's been TWO YEARS and his mom is in an even worse place than she was back then. Why doesn't the stupid judge just rule already and end this???? And why doesn't DHS just stop the visits??? There's no way that someone could successfully appeal TPR based on stopping visits two months after the TPR trial was finished! sheesh.
:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:
I am so ready to be done with this, can you tell???
We have been trying to figure out our FS5s visits based on mom having rehab in the mornings and him going into afternoon Kindergarten.
I was very firm that he had to be home by bed time - which is 8 - luckily for us mom doesn't sugar him up and he is always exhausted so he would go straight to sleep. I also am firm that I will not transport in the evenings or weekends since the other kids need to be places and if they want me to transport - it has to be between certain hours of the day.
They asked me to move him to morning K and I said no b/c then I lose busing so unless they want to drive him everyday that wasn't happening. Then they asked weekends and me to drive and I said nope - we do sports and other activities and I can't commit to that.
So then they came up with a plan to pick him up from school and limit mom's visits to 3 hours instead of 4.
Now she is in jail so it doesn't matter but I have found you just have to stand firm. Tell them no over and over. I know I am a good home and they would never move him so I don't give in to things that will affect him or me or my kids.
I wish I could stop visits all together...but that's a completely different story ;)
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See if your pediatrician can help. I had this same problem a few years ago, I just told the pediatrician the situation, he said that it was not enough sleep time for a child of that age and faxed a note with a cc to me and CASA to the CW. It basically said at child at this age, who has to be up a 730am, needs to be asleep by 7. It helped a lot!
I know this can be such a pain, my kiddos are the same way 4 & 7, in bed between about 7:30 - 8, but on visit times it can be a bit later because they aren't even home until about 7ish. Somethings we've started doing that have helped, sending a packed dinner with them, and having a little pb&j ready when they walk in the door if they didn't get enough. Everything is laid out for bed, with our nephew (4) it's literally a 3-5 minute scrub down shower, maybe 5-10 minutes of play, reading and bed. We've got it down to about a 20 minute process. It stinks and the kids get upset we can't hang out and play but it's what it's got to be for now. I'm dreading beginning overnights and such I KNOW the schedule will not be anything near the same...Grrrrr.....
Good luck I know is't frustrating...
So I totally get ALL of the frustration. We started mid-week visits and are requiring the kids be no more than 20 minutes from our house and home an hour before bedtime so we can get the bedtime stuff done. They are having visits at a nearby library. Mom also tends to load them up with sugar an running around so we explained to her that shouldn't be how it goes.
What about Friday evenings? We did that a while and it wasn't as stressful.
I agree that the sw should check with the child's bed time schedule. I had a 14month old baby & three year old who had a visit from 6-9pm which got them home around 10pm when they had to get up at 6:30am. Good Luck! It's amazing what they will do for the parents without thinking about the kids...
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Thanks for the suggestions ... the doctor idea is good, but sadly he goes to a horrible clinic (I am not allowed to switch him to another doctor) and there's no way they'd do it, they are very rude and we get treated like garbage. I usually take him to urgent care when he's sick.
I have tried already telling them over and over he HAS to be home at 7. Their response is basically, "Not possible, too bad." I have no power, it's not like I can say, "Well, too bad for YOU, I'm going to show up at the visit at 6:30 and haul him home."
I also brought up Friday evenings, but they refused that too.
Hopefully they will rule for TPR soon and we won't have to suffer through all this much longer ... :(