7 posts tagged “sleep”

One of Dash's least endearing qualities is his sleep -- or, more like, the lack thereof.  Though Petunia would still nap today if she could, Dash gave up naps over the summertime.  At age 3, he apparently has better things to do with his time; after all, he might miss an opportunity to run really fast or squash a bug or some such thing if he slept too much!

Case in point, on the way home from San Francisco yesterday, around 4:30 pm, he took an hour-long nap.  Bedtime, usually 8 pm, was pushed back until around 8:30 pm... but by 10, he still wasn't asleep.  The Guv, who had been trying to put him to sleep, came into the room where I was working just after 10, saying, "Your turn!"

When I entered the bedroom, Dash was sitting straight up in the bed.  "Mama," he sighed with great exasperation, "Daddy is being rude about my sleeping!"  (This was especially funny, as Dash pronounces "rude" as "whooooed.")

"Dash, it's very dark outside," I replied.  "It's way past your bedtime.  It's time for you to sleep, right now."

"But I don't want Daddy to be in here anymore," Dash replied, "I amn't [am not] going to sleep if Daddy's being rude."

"Well, Daddy's gone, and I'm here now, so sleep, m'k?" I answered.

A few minutes pass, and Dash demands another sippy cup of soy milk.  He sucks on it for about twenty mintues before telling me that he's all done, rolling over, and falling asleep.

The story is cute, but the problem is far from it... We need to take steps to get Dash to sleep on his own, all night, without us and without his milk.  It's much easier to put up with things as they are -- and much harder to fix them.  So, as soon as visiting Grammy and TiTi (his aunt) leave, we'll start at square one again with refusing to give him milk in the bed.  [Side note for the judgmental: giving Dash milk at night used to be a necessity when he was grossly underweight and required supplementation at night, and he's not that far out of the woods for us to curtail his milk consumption yet.  We can, however, alter the time frame -- and will.]  The remaining steps -- sleeping all night, then transitioning (again) to his own bed, will be hard.  Those will happen after we visit Vermont for Christmas.  They have too -- I'm just too tired to do it anymore.  So, wish us luck -- and wish that it's not all a "rude" experience!

Dash was nearly nodding off in the car, but he can no longer be transported inside while sleeping since he wakes up; and it was too hot to leave him in the car, even in the garage with all of the windows down.  As I took him out of the car, I told him that it was time to go inside to take a rest.  Here's how that went down:

Mama: Okay, Dash, now we're going to take a little rest before we pick up Petunia from school.

Dash: No!  I don't want to take a rest!  I don't like sleeping!

Mama: Today, you need a little rest because you went to bed late and woke up early.  Just a little one.  I'll read you your favorite truck book!

Dash: I want chocolate coins.

Mama: Okay, you can have one chocolate coin after you rest.

Dash: I want one chocolate coin before I rest and one chocolate coin after I rest.

Mama: Okay, okay.  One chocoate coin, and then you rest.

Dash: I also want a John Deere gator.

Mama: Well, if you rest, we can talk about that.

Dash: I don't want to talk about that, I want to drive one.

Mama (warning: little white lie coming): Okay!  We'll go and drive a gator after nap!

(We enter the house, I give him a chocolate coin, and we head off to the bedroom.)

Mama: Time for the truck book!

Dash: Here come the trucks!

(We read the book.  He drinks his milk and lies in silence for a full minute.)

Dash: Time to wake up!

Mama: Dash, you haven't rested yet.

Dash: I did rest for one whole hour!  Now it's time to drive the John Deere gator!

Mama: Seriously, Dash, the deal's off.  You didn't sleep.

Dash: Mama, I rested for one whole hour.

Mama: You rested for only one minute.

Dash: Yes, Mama, for a long time!  Now it's time to drive it!

Mama: Oh, no.  No, no, no.  You have to nap or I'm going to go crazy.

Dash: No, Mama, you'll go batty.

Neeedless to say, he didn't nap.

(For Dash 1, Mama 0, click here.)

I knew it would happen, I just didn't know when.  For the first half of the day, Dash refused to use the potty.  He didn't sleep well -- actually, it's more like we had a knock-down, drag-out fight from 1 - 3 am -- so he was exhausted, and moody, and screaming... and so was I.

His sleep has always, always, always been a problem.  We had a couple of very brief stretches where he slept in his crib, but, mostly, he's been in our bed, waking us up all through the night for milk -- first mine, then his FiFi milk (soy milk in a sippy cup).  There have been good reasons to have him in our bed -- first for convenience while nursing, then for helping him sleep propped up when his reflux was particularly bad, and most recently due to the chronic ear infections that brought high fevers, delusions and yet more vomiting -- but now, finally, there's just no need for him to still be waking us up all night.  We're in the process of fighting FiFi at night yet again, but it's easy to cave when we're on night after night of interrupted sleep -- and that interruption involves hours of screaming with a three year-old assaulting us, to which we respond by simply trying to calm and contain him without hurting him back.  Effectively straightjacketing a three year-old who wishes to hit, kick, bite and headbutt his way into making you get him milk in the night is no easy feat.  It's physically and emotionally exhausting, and it just doesn't feel right.  So usually, after a few nights, we're back to: "Here's your damned milk, kid, now go back to sleep..." and, while everyone still gets woken up in the middle of the night, it's much less traumatic.

A lot of friends and family members propose a "tough love" solution for this, and they're all right -- if we were dealing with a "normal" child.  Petunia was "ferberized" to sleep in a mere three days.  She's a "normal" kid.  But then, we have Dash.  One of the world's leading behavioral psychologists threw her hands in the air and proclaimed him to be the most stubborn child she's ever treated for feeding issues.  She herself said that if he wants milk in the night, give it to him -- not only to up his calories, but to pick our battles.  Good sleep was a distant second to good eating; success with the latter would help with the former.  Potty training?  Not even on the radar.

But... Dash has to be potty trained, even out of even pull-ups to start his new preschool in California.  Since our au pair will be gone, I'm relying on the break that preschool offers me.  He must use the potty, period.   [Yeah, yeah, I know that I should put my foot down like that about sleep, but I'm too tired.]

In any event, in his exhaustion today, Dash balked at the notion of going to the potty.  He screamed and fussed until I took him with me to drop off Petunia at camp.  Then he demanded Dunkin Donuts, and then I wound up running my two errands with him too.  When he's in that much of a funk, I can't leave him at home even with our au pair of eleven months.  I have a hard enough time not tuning the kid up myself when he's so unbearable (and I never, ever believe in hitting my kids, so that's really saying something).  We returned home, and he screamed some more.  He screamed at naptime, as I held him in our normal "he can't hurt me, I'm not hurting him" straightjacket hold.  Until he said, "I HATE."

I turned him to face me and said, "Look in my eyes, Dash.  What do you hate?"

He looked right at me and mustered as much indignant anger as a three year-old can.  "I HATE your legs that hold my legs down.  I HATE your arms that hold me still.  AND I HATE..."

But he couldn't say it.  He couldn't say "I HATE YOU."  He just broke down and cried, and my last baby fell quickly asleep in my arms.  He woke up three-plus hours later, and he went to the potty straight away.

I don't know what goes on inside this kid's head much of the time.  I'm pretty sure he's smarter than a three year old should be, and probably even smarter than any of us -- like if we were smarter, we could see the world through his eyes, and he would make a lot more sense.   What I do know is that he's only three, and he will go to the potty when he's darned well ready, and he will stop drinking his milk at night when he's darned well ready, and he will sleep all night in his own bed when he's darned well ready... and us?  his minions?  We just have to respect that.  He's diagnosed as the most stubborn child ever, and we're not going to break that -- we just have to hope to contain it, and love him anyway.

Last night, Dash slept "like a big boy because I'm growing" for the very first time, almost for the whole night.  We moved his bed to the room he'll share with his sister for the next couple of summers, left a twin bed in there for parental supervision -- and the Guv tucked him in, and he went to sleep, all the way until 4 am when the Guv brought him down to me.  He had asked "May I please snuggle Mommy now?" so the Guv couldn't resist.  Good boys, both.

Tonight, after trying to host a one-man riot in his big boy bed for nearly an hour way past bedtime, Dash is now snoozing in Mama's bed again.  Diagonally.  Snoring.  Loudly.

Somehow, long ago, while finding our way down this parenting road, the Guv and I became attachment parents.  We never set out to have kids in our bed, they just ended up there.  Petunia's stay ended with her weaning.  Dash's stay, with the exception of a few month-long stints in his co-sleeper then his crib, is ongoing.  He used to need to be right next to me; he wouldn't awaken with reflux-related vomiting, and my arm kept him propped in the night to prevent that -- or at least I was there to turn him and to clean it up.  Reflux left around age 2, but chronic ear infections -- and lots, lots more nighttime vomiting -- followed.  Again, he slept right next to mom.  But the ear tubes were placed last month, and after weeks of complications, Dash was well.  For a week.  Now he's fighting a cold again -- fighting it well, but it's there.  And here he is, diagonal, on my bed, snoring loudly.  He is warm, snuggly, smells baby-sweet, and I want him the hell out of my bed, yesterday. 

Call me selfish.  I just packed up and moved to two different places, motoring on even after dropping a double-dresser on my toe and breaking it magnificently.  I will still play tennis tomorrow, because that's how I am -- strong and stubborn.  Dash inherited those traits from me, apparently.  So I'll crawl into bed now, shoving him over to his side, which he'll make me switch in the middle of the night, demanding milk and a story in the process... which, to me, means that he's not that sick, and he can get out of my bed now, thank you, and bother his sister instead.  Right?  RIGHT???

I fell asleep putting Dash to sleep in his race car bed around 9 last night.  I climbed out at 10:45 and rounded the corner to my own bed in my own room, collapsing next to the Guv.  And I fell back to sleep.  We slept until the squirrels woke us at 5 am with their nut-gathering (we can hear the acorns dropping overhead), and we both panicked a bit, asking questions of each other like: Do you think Dash is alright?  Did you get up?  Did I get up and I'm so tired I forgot about it?  I volunteered to take a peak, police-issue Mag light in hand (I have a feeling I may need to use it one day to fend off an intruding squirrel). 

At 5:15, Dash was still sleeping like a normal child.  The Guv and I eventually fell back asleep when the squirrels left for the morning.

At 7:15, Dash woke up, happy, well-rested, and asking to go to the airport to watch the planes.  Today, he gets what he wants, and I might even buy him his first beer and girlie mag to go with it, because...

HE SPENT ALMOST NINE HOURS ALONE IN HIS BED WITHOUT WAKING UP.

I thought I'd never see the day. 

The Scene: Naptime.  Mama's Big, Soft Bed. 

After two books, half an hour, and several songs:
Mama: "Dash, it's time to sleep."
Dash: "No, Mama, it's time to count.  1,2,3,4,3,4!"

After some counting lessons, a "little Mama" story, another half an hour, and several more songs:
Mama: "Dash, if you don't sleep, you can't go with me to pick up Petunia from school.  You must sleep now.  Close your eyes."
A helicopter conveniently flies overhead.
Dash: "Mama, it's too loud for sleeping.  Copter, shhhh!"

After another copter and at least three planes, a last half hour, several more songs, and a lot of humming:
Mama: "Dash, why, oh why, won't you sleep?"
Dash: "I'm tired of sleeping, and I'm tired of school."

(with apologies to Walt Whitman)

It is Friday night, the kids are in bed, and the Guv is in Omaha.  In fact, Dash told the father of one of Petunia's friends that "Daddy is living in Omaha."  The dad chuckled and replied, "Watch it, kid, that's how rumors get started." 

The truth is, the Guv is attending Michael Jackson's wedding.  No, not THAT Michael Jackson, another one, a former college roommate -- one that has sexual proclivities that do not involve children.  Thank God.

I'm bracing myself for a long weekend following a long week, as Dash has been eating poorly and sleeping worse all week.  Tonight, I broke down and put him to sleep in my bed (I can see the Guv cringing in Omaha) so that I don't have to get up and run back and forth to his race car bed -- sleeping in it for several uncomfortable intervals -- all night.  When you have a kid who doesn't eat then wakes up asking for his sippy cup of soy milk (a.k.a. FiFi) all night because he's hungry, you tend to get very tired and to do things like this to make the matter worse.  It's a chicken and egg thing.  If I take FiFi away at night, will he eat better during the day?  We tried it.  The answer is no, he doesn't eat better during the day, but he actually does seem to sleep better without FiFi breaks.  Will taking FiFi away at night involve at least several sleepless nights on my part?  Yes, and this is the part that I can't do when I'm already this tired -- another egg and chicken thing. 

So, when the Guv decides that life in Omaha isn't for him, also known as next Tuesday, he and I can try to implement yet another action plan to strap the kid to his bed interest Dash in sleeping through the night in his race car bed.  Alone.  Without FiFi. 

Or, I can always call in Grammy and join the Guv in Omaha.  I have always wanted to see Nebraska, after all.