My son whom I love dearly is 2, almost 2 ½. He has never been a good sleeper. He will not fall asleep without me snuggling with him. We have tried putting him to bed early (8PM) and funny thing; he wakes up at 4 or 5 AM. I am not a big fan of the early morning. Hell when I am traveling I don’t like it so if I don’t have to do it I don’t want to. So usually it is get ready for bed between 9 and 9:30 PM and he tends to fall asleep by 10 PM. He wakes up at 6 AM, just in time to “help” me get stuff together in the morning so we can be out of the house by 6:30.
Last night he was asleep by 10 in his room, and crawled into our bed around 1:00AM. After thrashing around for 30 min or so he fell asleep. I brought him back to his room. Walked back to my bed and heard the pitter patter of DOOOOOM. Crawled into our bed with the boy, 10 min later he was jumping on the bed (70’s style water bed, queue the “chicky pow” music). We go into his room to lie down, he plays with my hair, climbs over me, on me, over me, off the bed on the bed. mama I want to sleep on the couch. So we go to the living room where I step on 7 cars, 5 trucks, 2 trains, 15 – 35 pieces of GeoTrax and 2 PS2 games. I lay a blanket down, lay him on top of blanket, and wrap him up with blanket. Kick EVERYTHING out of my way. Put a blanket on the floor and I lay down. 10 min later he is lying down next to me. 5 min later he is back on the couch, 5-10 min later he is next to me, with his head on my tummy, on my chest, on my legs, and then it is back onto the couch. 3 min after that he is jumping on the couch. I suggest going back to his room. It is somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00, I don’t know for sure because I have now misplaced my glasses and I am blind as a bat without them.
We go lie down in his room again. Mama can I lie on you, please please pleeeease. Of course you can spotty chop, I know you are having a hard time sleeping, can you stop elbowing me in the boob; and my hair, you don’t have to pull it out by the roots, just play with it. Stop putting it in my face I HATE having hair in my face, here I will roll over and you can play with my hair all you want, and then he climbs out of bed and goes into our room. I say good maybe I can fall asleep. This of course is the time that he turns around and climbs back into his bed. Rinse and repeat. mama I want to sleep on the couch. NO Fin WAY IN HELL, I am cranky, I am so frelling tired and I am unfortunately loosing my patience. So I tell him that I am tired and we are staying in his bed, crying and hitting commence. F this. Fine stay in your bed by yourself then. And I walk out the door, close it, hold it shut for a few min and then walk into our room. Hysterics, I climb back into my bed.
The pitter patter of DOOOOOOM is back. He crawls in next to me, mama I want hold you. Well, I want to hold you too buddy, so come snuggle. Hair in my face, hair in my face, hair in my ears, in my nose, in my face, on his toes, his belly button, hair in my face. mama can I have come chocolate milk please. Yup, no problem, it is 3:55 and he has got to crash soon. So I make chocolate milk, with his help. And we go back to our bed. He drinks chocolate milk, plays with my hair, asks me to hold his chocolate milk, thanks me, rolls over, kicks his father once or twice, rolls back to me, asks for more chocolate milk please. Drinks milk, hands it back. Falls asleep. It is 4 something. I punch Dad and tell him to roll the F over because he has been snoring for 3 Fin hours straight. Loud enough to wake the dead, and not the recently dead, I mean the really dead.
I finally fall asleep, to wake up to the alarm.
You ask yourself dad? I bet you thought I was a single parent didn’t you? Well, as the Big Dude is so fond of telling me. You didn’t listen to me when he was 6 months old, I told you to let him cry himself to sleep, if you had done that you wouldn’t need to be in his room, he would just go to sleep on his own, he wouldn’t get out of bed, he would fall asleep by 7 pm, he would nap well, the Iraq war would be over, national debt would be at an all time low, dogs and cats would live together in harmony. I think you get the picture. So he does not help out with bedtime. You know what? Blow me. I do not get to stay home with my baby. I am out of the house by 6:30 every Fin morning and I do not get home until about 6:30 in the evening. Snuggling at night is the way I distressed myself.
I don’t think you need to let your child cry themselves to sleep. It just does not seem right to me. This morning do I wish he would just fall asleep on his own? Damn straight, but from my understanding very few high school kids want their moms sleeping with them. I should be able to get to sleep in another 14 years or so.
