Another sleep update

These are the times that try moms’ souls. And dad too. No, we’re not talking American Revolution, merely bedtime for a child who does his darnedest to not fall asleep, no matter how exhausted he may be.

I finished his bed, so we started the transition earlier this week. I figured that would only serve to rejuvenate his unwillingness to sleep, because of the novelty of having a new big boy bed. And we haven’t been disappointed so far. Of course, expecting it and being prepared for it are two different things. The first day, he ended up never even taking a nap (although in fairness to him, we got him to bed much later than normal), and took over an hour to fall asleep that night. Now there’s no effort whatsoever involved in escaping – no rails to climb over and sides to scale down – so he’s out of bed before we even leave the room. On the plus side, he can get himself back into bed when he sees us coming…

Needless to say, emotions have run the gamut for everyone involved, from total frustration (everyone), physical exhaustion (everyone), excitement for his new bed (C), mental exhaustion (mom and dad), to crying (everyone). I tried pinning him to the bed, reasoning with him (logic tends to not work well on two-year olds), ignoring him, lying next to him – none worked; eventually he just laid down and didn’t get back up. As has always been the case, he would play until he dropped, and doesn’t realize or care how tired he clearly is; he just needs to keep going. I really think that you don’t appreciate sleep until you don’t get it anymore.

All that being said, when he does fall asleep, peaceful and small and curled up in the middle of his big bed, holding monkey and covered with his blanket, it makes you forget about the nightmare of the prior hour(s). At least enough to keep him around to do it again the next time.

(I was going to take a picture, but with the effort involved in getting him to sleep, there’s no way I’m going to take a chance that the click of the camera would wake him up.)