I’ve never had “good sleepers.” I think for the most part I
accepted that pretty gracefully. I’ve acknowledged and accepted that it may be
many, many years before I am able to get four (yes, you read that right, four) solid hours of sleep.
But by golly, would it kill my kids to nap for an hour!? And
for it to be relatively painless for said nap to occur?
H hasn’t really napped since, well, before B was born. She,
like B, fought sleep from birth. I just rolled with it. She needs a nap, she just doesn’t do it. Occasionally
she’ll crash in the car, or while I have her lying in bed when I’m putting B to
sleep. But rarely. When she was under 18 months I could hold her or nurse her
or wear her and that would help a lot. Then she decided that was no good too.
B had the same feelings, but kind of gave up the “you can
hold me and nurse me to nap” around 14 months.
But dear God those children need to nap. And Momma needs 1 hour to herself. I feel like that’s
not asking for much. Especially the weeks when J is not here. Those weeks when
there are no naps are brutal.
I sometimes get envious when I hear of people having friends
or family who routinely baby sit their kids. I’m like, “Omfg, you get a break!?”
And it seems surreal and amazing. Because I adore my kids. They’re the greatest
things in my life, yadda yadda yadda. But sometimes I just want to be a human,
too, ya know?
My little sister on rare occasions watches them, and I’m
eternally grateful for that but she’s a busy college kid, so her availability
is limited, which I understand.
But dear lord. If they’d just nap, and easily, it wouldn’t
be such a big deal. On the days they do finally nap, I’m so freaking exhausted
from finally helping them get to sleep that I’m too exhausted to enjoy those
30-45 minutes to myself (because they rarely nap longer than that unless in the
car).
Today is took Miss H 1.5 hours to fall asleep. I typically
ask her to lie in her bed while I put B to sleep, in hopes she’ll pass out too.
She finally did. B succumbed 30 minutes later. This was after a morning full of
playing with one of their good friends whom I was sitting for, then spending
over an hour outside in the snow, followed by lunch. I didn’t put them down ridiculously
early or anything. It was 1pm and they were rubbing their eyes and getting to
the yawning phases. We read stories and had cuddles and then it all went to
hell with lots of screaming and crying. Because, you know, sleep is torture. Lying
down with them is like lighting them on fire. Or you would think so with the
way they react.
To be fair, not all days are like that. There are occasions that
they pass out quickly. They are few and far between, but they happen.
I even laugh when lots of toddler sleep resources say
toddlers fall asleep within 5-10 minutes. And I always feel like 30-40 minutes
is a good day or night.
Oh, well. This is me very ungracefully dealing with their
inability to nap.
And really, I would even say, okay, hey, no naps. Everyone
stay awake and have a bloody party if that’s what you want. Except they’re
unbearable. They are in full-on melt down mode when they don’t nap. So it’s a
lose-lose situation. Do I want to hear them whine and cry in the afternoon or
in the evening?
Have I mentioned lately that I extremely dislike naps?
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