First point - Emily never has a sleep during the day. She hasn't for a long time. If she does, she's ill.
Right, now that's out of the way, we went shopping yesterday and when we came back we were all in the living room - myself putting together purchases and Sue and Em lounging on the settee. Next thing you know, Em's fast asleep - it's 6pm.
My first thought is she's ill, she's not well, she's tired - i.e. she needs to sleep. Previously when she's gone to bed hella early she's slept all the way through because she's ill, she's not well, she's tired, etc.
At this point, we had two obvious choices - treat it as a nap, wake her around 8 for dinner and see where we go from there OR treat it like she's out of sorts and needs to sleep and wake her normal time tomorrow.
We went for plan B. Big mistake.
Around midnight we could hear chatter from her room and immediately knew that plan B was the wrong plan. SOMETIMES, she'll wake, chatter to herself and go back to sleep.
Knowing full well she hadn't eaten since around 3pm, I figured her chatter / fall asleep would work better if her stomach wasn't grumbling. I went downstairs and made her a sandwich which I took in to her. Even though she'd been asleep for 6 hours and had woken, she wasn't all that active - still laying quite docile in her bed and only really turning when I entered the room.
I gave her the sandwich and a drink, fully expecting at this point that both her and I would be in a state of restful slumber by 1am.
Ha.
Come 5.30am when Sue got up to go the loo, I have it on good authority the party was still a rocking. Like a lightweight college student I was fully passed out next to party girl #1 who wouldn't take sleep for an answer.
This all changed at 7am when it was time to get up to go to school / work. Emily was fast asleep, having had probably about an hour's sleep in this spell. Needless to say, all attempts at getting her ready were met with crying and what I imagine to be a childlike sense of "what the hell? I just got to sleep." Needless to say, we couldn't send her off in this state - and all parties (council transport, Dragonflies and Helen) had to be notified this possibly ill girl was going to stay at home... and sleep?
If this episode has taught us anything, it's that even if Emily is ill we need to err on the side of caution and wake her, ensuring that she doesn't work herself into a new time zone by accident with her new body clock. Jet lag's horrible when you're travelling, let along when you're not.