Rock A Bye Matthew...

I fell asleep last night at 20 minutes after 8. Even at my most exhausted moments, I do not fall sleep early. I just keep dragging myself from thing to thing that needs to be done. Last night, it just was not going to happen. It was like the 1st trimester all over again. I just laid my head on the pillows and was clicking between NCIS and American Idol and the next thing I knew I was greeted by people being berated on Hell's Kitchen and the bright dining room light shining in my eyes. It was 9:45p. I got up, stumbled to the kitchen, got a glass of water and got ready for bed. Kevin said Matthew was asking for me until after 9:00pm.

My son. Does anyone have any answer any longer about how to get a three year old to go to sleep in a timely manner??? We start his "bed time routine" about 7:15-7:30p every evening and seriously it is a hellish procedure from then until around 9:00-9:30p every night. We are convinced that the only reason he finally goes to sleep is that he is OMG actually tired and has just passed out.

He drives us batty through the process. He does not just play quietly in his room before going to sleep. No, no. He yells and cries. Whimpers and moans. He is a mad man. It is like bed time brings out the beastly beast in my son. For three years, we have been dealing with this and in ten-ish weeks or so, this process will seem even worse. I will not have the energy for a bit and my time will be taken up with - er - other things like providing nourishment to a newborn.

I have come to think of Matthew as one of those kids that is a bit of night owl BUT he is also a morning person. OMG, he is my dad...

Nothing works with him. We tried renaming bed time nap time because naps are such a breeze. You put him down for a nap and he kisses you sweetly and bang he is out. WHY OH WHY CAN THIS NOT BE OUR BED TIME ROUTINE? Not that I would want the nap thing to change to get his bed time down but still...

Really it comes down to feeling like a failure in this department. I was a huge wimp with him as a little guy. We gave into his whims because we wanted to hang with him. At one point when he was much younger he was staying up until 10-10:30p just because we did not say 'no'. We finally realized what a monster we were creating and OMG we were flipping tired it was mostly too late. I am grateful he goes in his room at around 8:30p & does not come out but even that makes me feel tired. I want to rest, decompress from work and life, watch the latest bad reality TV shows and maybe even go to sleep on time.

Random rant, I know but man I feel for Kevin who will have to take on this monstrous task in few short weeks because there will no longer be two sets of hands to deal with it.

On an unrelated note, we still have not come up with a baby name. We sort of think we know the middle name but only if it ends up going with the first name. Someone told me that the hospital will allow us to go three weeks without naming our baby. Do you think it will come to that???

Sleep Obsessed

Let's face it - this is not my 1st nor my last time to complain about Matthew's sleep schedule. My little darlin' likes to get to bed late like his momma BUT... (breathing deeply) but he also likes to wake up at the butt crack of dawn. What have I done to deserve this I wonder?!

Matthew has been like this from the get go. I mean it - like pre-baby coming out of the womb. He would get started kicking at around 9:00p... And one would think the kid had a soccer ball in there with him because my ribs and some times I thought my lungs were getting booted SO hard. That kicking, squirming moving baby inside me went on for hours into the night. Finally quieting down around midnight. Only to start back up around 5:00p. It made me laugh at the time... WITH silence during the day... seriously I used to poke my belly at work to prod him to move because he was SO silent ALL. DAY. LONG!

Little did I know - ah to be oh so naive again - that this would chart the course of his relationship with sleep in the "real world"! From day one Matthew disliked sleeping... at night. like the rest of the world... He had to very urgently nurse ALL. NIGHT. LONG. Now my little tot sleeps through the night (most of the time) but getting the kiddo to bed is a major process that both Kevin and I get terribly frustrated about. We have tried all the tricks and quite frankly my bag o tricks is EMPTY.

I have given in... His normal actual go to sleep time is currently 9:15p on average. He current wakey wakey time is 6:30a. Now you may say 'well he naps like a champ - my kid doesn't do that...' I would seriously give up an hour or two of nap time to get him in bed by 7:00-8:00p every night. I do not even mind the early wake up calls if he would only do that.

I have my own issues with sleep. I am pooped during the day (dying for a 2-3 hour nap like Matthew...) but I cannot for the life of me force myself to sleep before 11:30p and I am usually up by 6:00a most mornings. I hate operating on this kind of sleep and no matter how hard I am on myself about changing my ways - I STILL DO IT... since I can remember. No really - I was sneaking the light on in my closet to read at around 5-6. I hated to sleep at night as a kid!

That is stoopid. Seriously, I am dumb. I need to change (I have been saying this for years!) especially when we start to get all serious about baby #2. I also know that eventually Matthew will grow out of this (or not... but he will be able to entertain himself rather than yell "momma, I hear you".) I know that nothing lasts forever but my word I never thought at almost 29 months I would be writing about his sleep habits STILL.

I look at the late bed time as extra time to spend with my son... and I look at the early mornings as training for baby #2... I can only hope that baby #2 does not take after Matthew and I... that he/she sleeps like a dream and that I can teach myself to go to bed and have it stick this time around...

I am sleep obsessed... always have been... probably always will be... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Why is it that we are still talking about sleep?

Matthew is 26 months old - soon to be 27 months old. And yet we still struggle with sleep. That has always been a "major" issue in our household. We did not have that perfect angelic child who slept through the night from day one. Naps are a snap but bed time is/was/has been H-E-L-L through out the past 26 months.

I hate that time of day when we start talking about getting ready for bed - or as Matthew asks "time for napping?" It makes shudder to just think about bed time right at this moment. It is a battle of the worst kind. We have tried everything known to toddler kind, literally. I mean it. Kevin & I both have theories and ideas about how to make bed time easier. We try them, exchange ideas, see if they work and dump them out after several weeks of frustrated attempts to keep things status quo, to make sure things work. We have simplified, done quiet time, tried crying it out, compulsively made the routine routine, we have tried snacks, bribery, begging, screaming at the tops of our lungs... ah hem, I mean... er, we have tried everything. It sucks quite frankly.

Sleep (and the potty)- if only I could conquer these issues... I would then perhaps consider having a 2nd baby even!

Let me just say that it is not keeping my son asleep at night that is the issue (OMG pounding on the wood so as not to jinx us...), it is the act of actually getting Matthew to sleep that is the issue. I was happy to hear yesterday other moms (and dads) stating they have similar issues - not because I am happy they to are frustrated but because we are not alone in our issues. That always helps - misery does love company, you know?!

I am all over that - "omg yeah my son totally does that too." "oh you had to move the toddler bed back to a crib too!?" I can hardly contain my excitement to find others who have similar issues. It is suckalious to talk to parents who tell me that they have never had this issue or that - it makes me feel lonely. I want to cry at my failure as a parent to not be able to guide my young prodigy(because we all know he is brillant, right. Right?!) to learn to go to sleep. by himself. in a real bed. AFTER HAVING GONE POOPY AND PEE PEE IN A TOILET - ah but that is another issue all together.

I search in vain for the answer and even with all that company I am still miserable at the end of the day (haha, I am SO punny...) One of my favorite searches turned up on eHow (and if you have never looked things up on eHow - try it, it is fun and amusing all at once...)

" Be patient. If your toddler has trouble getting to sleep, that doesn't necessarily mean he has a sleep disorder ' it may just reflect the fact that being awake is so much fun. Work on the sleep routine at a rate your child can handle, and everything should be OK."

Yeah okay what about working on a sleep routine at a rate that mommy and daddy can handle because we are looking at the year 2010 before Matthew actually gets his routine and goes to sleep without a struggle! Ah and good to know he does not "necessarily" have a sleep disorder...

" Keep him busy during the daytime. Most toddlers have lots of energy and enjoy going to the park or playground to work some of it off." - I love how it is implied that our toddler stays at home with someone so he can go to the park or playground to burn off his energy. Grrr... nothing like alienating the working parent! Yeah so I was thinking about this part of my post and I am being a bit sensitive, I KNOW, but still... I mean come on!

Oh and this is promising: "It is a disturbing myth that a gentle sleep plan is slow and a cry-it-out plan is quick. The TRUTH is that either method can bring quick results. But in most cases, either way, cry or no cry, it will take weeks or months before a child is going to sleep easily and sleeping all night every night. Just like teaching a child to walk, talk, or use the potty, there is no one-day solution. And there is no simple one-size-fits-all solution."

As she runs from her computer screaming, in tears and her co-workers are left to wonder "what?"

This person - Elizabeth Pantley - who wrote The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night which I tried to slog my way through when Matthew was a wee tot wrote a great book. She has excellent advise but not if you are (extended) nursing. Matthew was just an aggressive nurser - I wonder how the hell I will handle nursing with a new baby and a toddler (mostly if I will be able to go for any where near as along as I went with Matthew - again another story, another time...)

She offers helpful advise on this go around (and I rather like Liz has a came to think of her back in the day...): "The best bedtime for most toddlers and preschoolers is between 6:30 and 7:30 PM; it's a biological thing. If we don't listen to the biological call we miss bedtime and then a child gets a second wind and is up until 11 p.m.

First, make sure your child isn't taking a long, late nap. For example, some people let their child take a dinnertime nap, which with a little nudge can become an early bedtime.

And an interesting thing I learned: When I surveyed children about sleep, a surprising 97% of kids gave the same answer to the question, "How do you know its bedtime?" The answer was "Mommy tells me." Or "Daddy tells me." This gives parents more power than they realized. They may have never realized that setting a bedtime is as simple as setting a bedtime!

So create that peaceful bedtime routine I've been talking about and set an earlier bedtime. It really, really helps if that routine takes place for an hour and is quiet, peaceful and dimly lit. Bright lights and noise prevent tiredness."

Kevin & I have discussed that some of the "getting Matthew to bed" issues may include the length of time Matthew naps, the fact that Matthew is so excited to be around us at the end of the day, the fact that he thinks when we put him to bed it is equal to us leaving him at day care during the day and, finally, we have solo bed time routines now a days. Both of us do not assist. Having both of us involved seemed to get him revved up rather then quieted down. I think we just need to tighten things up in terms of bed time routine and hunker down and know that eventually Matthew will get a bed time down (and it will be before he turn 16 and by that time OMG let's DEFINITELY NOT go there...)

Holy long post batman. If your still hanging with me, have a lovely day filled with hopes for a good night sleep!