"How have you been?" "Well, I've been living in a cardboard box, sleeping on grates, eating out of dumpsters. You?" "Hmm, can't complain."
I can complain about a lot of things with Abbie. Her insistence on playing with anything with buttons is a good example, as is her boycott of all words except “mbuh.” One thing I can’t complain about is her sleeping habits. Not that that’s the only thing about her that I can’t complain about. For instance, she’s cute. And she generally smells non-offensive, except for when she has a load in her diaper, but that’s not her fault.
But the good sleeping thing is her forte.* The only other quality that comes close is her desire to eat everything, from the edible (chocolate) to the semi-edible (spinach). I place her ravenousness second because it also lead her to try consuming things not generally intended for human consumption like rocks or dog food or peas that disappeared between the cracks in her high chair days ago that she’s just now discovering.
Ever since we implemented The Schedule around 10 weeks of life, Abbie has been a super sleeper. At least compared to other kids, she’s a doozy of dozer. I’ve heard some kids refuse to nap past a certain age like 9-months, but at 17-months she still naps everyday for at least 90 minutes, usually at least two hours, sometimes more than three hours. Some parents have nightly battles with their children to get them to sleep, or endure daily predawn wakeup times, but Abbie continues to go to bed with minimal fussing every night and sleeps until I wake her up, or at least plays contentedly in her crib until I rescue her, every morning.
Not that I’m trying to brag, but my general message here is my kid’s sleeping habits could beat up most kids’ sleeping habits. That’s why yesterday was so disturbing. It started in the morning when I rolled out of bed 45 minutes before her wake time and could have swore I heard a solitary wail, then nothing from her until I woke her up. Maybe my groggy head was playing tricks on me. Maybe Abbie had a toddler nightmare that dissipated with one scream, and then fell back to sleep. Maybe Abbie warning me of what would happen if I tried to make her sleep again that day. Regardless of the answer, I continued my morning routine of intending to write while wasting my time on the internet until wake time.
The rest of the morning proceeded normally with me trying to do chores around the house and Abbie trying to grab my attention be playing in dog food. Even the pre-nap routine progressed normally with eating flowing into reading, which flowed into diaper changing, which flowed into singing, which flowed into squirming and stalling, which flowed into setting her in the crib, which flowed into the usual pre-nap fusses, which should have flowed into hours of sleep.
Shortly after I set her down, Ellie came home. I don’t know if Abbie heard the door and decided she needed to see mommy before falling asleep, if her teeth started bothering her, or if she suddenly remembered where she left that dog food kibble she wanted to eat before her nap, but she started screaming, and not the usual fighting off sleep screams. These were full bore pissed off at the world screams.
Being a firm believer in the “let her scream it out” theory, I let her scream for a couple minutes because she needs to learn to calm herself down. Plus I was trying to take a nap. It was quickly clear that she was not tiring herself out, and Ellie entered her room to clam her. After a little rocking and singing, she settled down, but as soon as Ellie left she started screaming again.
After a few more minutes of screaming, I needed to wake up and exercise or Daddy’s Schedule would be off for the rest of the day. Before hitting the stairclimber, I entered her room to sing to her for a few minutes in her crib in a last ditch pacification effort. She relented, though she didn’t look happy about it. As soon as I left the room she started screaming again, but before I could enter the program in the stairclimber (“manual”) she was asleep.
Once she fell asleep, she stayed asleep, waking up just in time to eat her afternoon snack before I started heating her supper. At bedtime, the angry screams returned, but this time they subsided after a few minutes and she fell asleep. Today her sleeping habits have returned to her normal quite a bit above average status, which is good because I don’t need to be able to complain about those on a daily basis.
* “Forte” is a French word meaning “an American’s least obnoxious quality.”
But the good sleeping thing is her forte.* The only other quality that comes close is her desire to eat everything, from the edible (chocolate) to the semi-edible (spinach). I place her ravenousness second because it also lead her to try consuming things not generally intended for human consumption like rocks or dog food or peas that disappeared between the cracks in her high chair days ago that she’s just now discovering.
Ever since we implemented The Schedule around 10 weeks of life, Abbie has been a super sleeper. At least compared to other kids, she’s a doozy of dozer. I’ve heard some kids refuse to nap past a certain age like 9-months, but at 17-months she still naps everyday for at least 90 minutes, usually at least two hours, sometimes more than three hours. Some parents have nightly battles with their children to get them to sleep, or endure daily predawn wakeup times, but Abbie continues to go to bed with minimal fussing every night and sleeps until I wake her up, or at least plays contentedly in her crib until I rescue her, every morning.
Not that I’m trying to brag, but my general message here is my kid’s sleeping habits could beat up most kids’ sleeping habits. That’s why yesterday was so disturbing. It started in the morning when I rolled out of bed 45 minutes before her wake time and could have swore I heard a solitary wail, then nothing from her until I woke her up. Maybe my groggy head was playing tricks on me. Maybe Abbie had a toddler nightmare that dissipated with one scream, and then fell back to sleep. Maybe Abbie warning me of what would happen if I tried to make her sleep again that day. Regardless of the answer, I continued my morning routine of intending to write while wasting my time on the internet until wake time.
The rest of the morning proceeded normally with me trying to do chores around the house and Abbie trying to grab my attention be playing in dog food. Even the pre-nap routine progressed normally with eating flowing into reading, which flowed into diaper changing, which flowed into singing, which flowed into squirming and stalling, which flowed into setting her in the crib, which flowed into the usual pre-nap fusses, which should have flowed into hours of sleep.
Shortly after I set her down, Ellie came home. I don’t know if Abbie heard the door and decided she needed to see mommy before falling asleep, if her teeth started bothering her, or if she suddenly remembered where she left that dog food kibble she wanted to eat before her nap, but she started screaming, and not the usual fighting off sleep screams. These were full bore pissed off at the world screams.
Being a firm believer in the “let her scream it out” theory, I let her scream for a couple minutes because she needs to learn to calm herself down. Plus I was trying to take a nap. It was quickly clear that she was not tiring herself out, and Ellie entered her room to clam her. After a little rocking and singing, she settled down, but as soon as Ellie left she started screaming again.
After a few more minutes of screaming, I needed to wake up and exercise or Daddy’s Schedule would be off for the rest of the day. Before hitting the stairclimber, I entered her room to sing to her for a few minutes in her crib in a last ditch pacification effort. She relented, though she didn’t look happy about it. As soon as I left the room she started screaming again, but before I could enter the program in the stairclimber (“manual”) she was asleep.
Once she fell asleep, she stayed asleep, waking up just in time to eat her afternoon snack before I started heating her supper. At bedtime, the angry screams returned, but this time they subsided after a few minutes and she fell asleep. Today her sleeping habits have returned to her normal quite a bit above average status, which is good because I don’t need to be able to complain about those on a daily basis.
* “Forte” is a French word meaning “an American’s least obnoxious quality.”
posted by Matt at
10:25 PM
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