No Rest for the Weary

Way back when Finley couldn’t speak and didn’t do much

more than nurse or eat, we decided we were very lucky. You see, after about her 9^th week of existence, she started sleeping through the night. Of course, there were the occasional outbursts and fits, but nothing that wasn’t too horrible to deal with.

There were a couple of times over the past few years where she might have a cold or be a little sick and she might wake up in the middle of the night coughing or even throw up. And we would stumble through the darkened house, Momma cleaning up the little one and Poppa cleaning up the mess. Again, nothing that lasted more than a couple of nights.

Of course, being friends with other parents, we did our best to keep this a bit of a secret. No use rubbing it in or jinxing ourselves. Not every night was perfect, but the good ol’ days were much better than the stories we heard from the other parents.

And that’s the way we lived. Fairly quiet nights and pretty decent sleep for the both of us. We may have gotten too comfortable.

I’m not sure if it’s a precursor to life with a three-year old or some sort of growing pains or teeth issues, but it looks – and certainly feels like – our good luck has run out. For the past few weeks, Finley has not wanted to go to sleep and calls out and shrieks and cries for Momma. Momma is always first on the list, and in this case, I don’t mind.

Finley is basically trying to stall having to go to bed. She either wants some water, or to go to the bathroom or just wants to be rocked. All in the name of not having to go to bed. And the longer we try to ignore her, the more she cries. Some nights she basically cries herself to sleep and others she gives in after we plead a little bit.

The hard part for us – other than the anxiety of listening to her cry and worrying about the neighbors – is wondering how to deal with this. There are some schools of thought that say you should leave them be, because if you go in, you only empower them to think you’ll come whenever they cry. Then there’s the other side – which I subscribe to – that says you can reason with them. I may have to change sides, though. My way seemed to have worked tonight, but it sure didn’t work last night.

The worst part is that after all the anxiety of getting her to sleep, lately she’s been waking up in the middle of the night, calling out. So not only are we exhausted trying to GET her to bed, we’re exhausted dealing with her at two, or three, or four in the morning.

I have to clarify, here, or risk being beaten, that I am not usually the one who gets up in the middle of the night to deal with said child. It’s not because I don’t care or because I don’t want to, it’s mostly because I don’t hear her. I’m a pretty heavy sleeper and Heather can hear a caterpillar sneeze from two blocks away. More often than not, I wake when she returns to bed, but she’s really taking the brunt of it all.

At any rate, we’ve got a toddler who doesn’t want to go to bed and who wakes up in the middle of the night and has trouble going BACK to sleep. We’ve also got a Momma who is getting very little sleep and a Poppa who is trying – in his most laid back way – to deal with it all and convince the whole family that everything will be alright and that it’s just a stage.

The bottom line for me is that a happy, sleeping toddler equals a happy, sleeping Momma which equals a happy, sleeping me. So what to do?

Well, Heather’s reading a bunch of theories and I’m trying to stick to my “reasoning” method. But I’m learning that reasoning with a toddler is difficult. BUT, I maintain that if I can talk to her and she can – through reason – make the decision herself to try to go to sleep, it’s good for all of us. Again, it worked tonight. Who knows if it works tomorrow?

My hope is that this round of reasoning, if it works, can lead to more of the same in the many decisions she’ll have to make as she grows up. Giving her the power make the decisions and live with them will go a long way.

Now let’s all just hope she decides to sleep through the night for the next week, so I can report that my theory works.