Help with my DS...sleep issues...sorry, long.

[newfiemountiewife]

A little bit of background, as a baby he was an awful sleeper. I was determined that no kid of mine was going to sleep in bed with us, and tried to get him to sleep in his crib for a year. At about 1 year, I ended up moving him into our bed, because I was completely exhausted after a year of him getting up several times a night. As he grew, it ended up that Tony ended up in the spare room, and Benjamin in bed with me.

Just before he turned 4, we moved here. In advance of this, we let him pick out his stuff for his own room, and he moved on out on his own. This worked well, and we haven't had issues other than the usual night here or there. He has had history of nightmares (not night terrors) and sleep walking, not sure if that's related, but I thought I'd mention it.

He is 8 now, and the past two-three weeks, we're having a lot of trouble getting him to sleep. He goes on to bed on his own, as usual, but the past while, he keeps wanting us to go down with him, to help him to get to sleep. He has not needed this since we moved here over 4 years ago. I have asked him if he's having nightmares, if anything's bothering him, if he's having trouble at school, but he says it's none of those things, he just wants us down there with him. It also is not a stalling tactic to stay up later, he has no interest in that, he just wants us to lie down with him.

Any ideas? I know it's been a lot of change since I started back to skating, it's now 9 hours a week that I am not home, when I was before. That was around the time this started up. However, he does see me when I'm at skating, he skates 2 hours a week himself.

Do you think the skating could have messed him up? But if this is true, I've been skating every year since he's been born, why would it cause trouble this fall?

I'm not mad with him or anything else, but he CAN get to sleep on his own, he's done it for years, I just wonder why he started this up now.

Thanks if you got this far, and if you have any suggestions, please, I'd love to hear them!