Every parent knows the torture of a sleepless night with a new born, where rocking the baby and trying to soothe them looks less like a baby product commercial and more like a spectacle such as wrestling a bag of snakes. I am pretty sure every parent can relate to that.
But what about when it's not an 3-4.5 kg (7-10 pounds) bundle? what if it's a 15 kg toddler? what happens if the screaming just won't stop no matter what you do? when you've nursed, patted, cuddled, read stories, played outside all day and offered nutritious snacks and kept a routine and made sure that sugar isn't part of their normal diet and it just never ends? what if telling them calmly "it's time to sleep, good night honey" is to them code for "show me how loud you can yell and how hard you can kick the door in!" what happens when even the old "sleep with Mama and Papa" trick just leads to no one sleeping as the tot just slaps you in the face repeatedly and kicks you and gets up and wants to play and it's not even 2AM yet? How many parents have faced that?
I have recently with Kicky. He's a two year old on a mission to deprive me of sleep until I completely surrender to his plans. When Edison was the same age he only ever woke for a reason. In fact he was SO good at bedtime that I'd just put him in bed give him a kiss and leave. And that is how he likes it still. We momentarily had issues when we were given a big kid bed for him by my MIL. He didn't feel secure for the first week and so he was restless but we've always given the children the option of sleeping in their own space or sleeping with us. It's totally up to them. Edison has always preferred his own space. Even as a new born. Kicky is completely the opposite and while as an infact he had the same excellent routine that saw him grow enormous and sleeping quite well that Edison had *he has always been an early riser but was easily put down and resettled* he's very sensitive and the slightest change brings about catastrophe. So when we went away for a week and not a single problem arose after the first night concerning his sleep I thought maybe we were making some progress! Progress after a tricky two years!!
Oh how wrong I was.
When we got back home he was exhausted from the trip and so he slept it off for a couple days and I like a fool made no attempt to prevent this. I felt it would be cruel to make him keep his usual times after such a long journey. But after two days he'd started a new sleep pattern and he was no longer tired.
He started waking up through the night, and refusing all attempts to resettle him and sleep. He wanted up. He wanted to play and he thought everyone else should be up too. So he screamed at me for not turning the lights on. He tried to kick in the bedroom door to get to me when I tried to go back to bed and leave him playing in the family room, he got into the pantry and made a mess with the cocoa powder and rice flour and eggs, he woke Edison who then joined in. and poor MC didn't get a very restful night either. I was always able to resettle Edison and he went back to bed without argument. But this was just the beginning of Kicky's reign of terror. He literally wanted me to sit up and watch him sleep. I couldn't even roll over and sleep with him I had to watch him and if I tried to move his eyes would snap open and he'd scream again.
night after night I put myself to bed right after he was deeply asleep to make sure I got a few hours. but between 11:30PM and 2AM he would be up again. The sleep was but a nap time to him. and then around noon he'd crash and nothing I did would keep him awake. This kid could sleep on his feet when it suited him.
Stories were read in an attempt to make him sleepy and relaxed. it made it worse as he was being rewarded for getting up. I desperately even turned on the TV in the end. Just to a radio channel with sleepy sounding classical music. It didn't work. More days passed and I was lost in a haze of sleep deprivation and desperation. I couldn't nap when he did during the day as I had to care for Edison who was awake and needed and deserved attention and I was by myself. More coffee and less sleep were almost a foregone conclusion about my future. It was horrible.
Eventually I asked others for ideas. most had the same ones such as "leaving him to scream", another was "sleep with him" And a fellow Blogger suggested I tell him something along the lines of "the doctor says I have to go to bed, I have neck problems so I can only stay with you X number of minutes and then I have to go to sleep and so do you" and slowly wean him from the attention I think this is probably the gentlest and most sensible idea so far. All likely have their merits. But do all of these ideas lead to sleep for me? Are there other ideas out there? I tend to use the Super Nanny's "dinner, bath, bed" routine as it slowly winds them down and then you just leave. This worked before we left and will likely with time work again but breaking the habit is imperative. Does anyone have any ideas? I will post an update when things work themselves out because of course they will. And until then I take comfort that surely I am not the only parent to ever have a wakeful child.
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