S.L.E.E.P those 5 letters and such a simple thing to do…no? When do children start sleeping in past 7am? A colleague of mine told me that once they hit the teenage years, they won’t wake up until noon, or even past 2pm at times! “You gotta drag ’em outta bed!” another friend said. Wowa, I can’t wait until my kids start “sleeping in” until 8am.
Miles has always been a pretty good sleeper. We would put him in his crib, turn out the light and walk out the door. We would not hear a peep from him until the morning. Lila on the other hand is a different story. That girl is a fantastic 4pm napper. She falls asleep immediately while in the car, or sometimes sitting in a grocery cart. Every parent knows that if-and-when a child naps around the 4pm evening time, the child will be partying until 11pm that night. Well, maybe I should just say, our kids. I have one friend who swears that her three year-old son can take a three-hour nap in the afternoon and still be able to go to bed around 7:3pm at night! Again, WOWA!
What has been the most frustrating lately is that J and I will do everything in our power to get Lila to stay awake in the afternoon. We’ll tickle her, read books to her, force her to go outside and play…Sometimes she will go along with our games, but other times she screams, shouts, yells at us because she is mad that we are trying to keep her from napping. When it comes to bedtime that night, J and I are sure that she will fall fast asleep at 8pm, but nooooooo, that girl is very disruptive. She will go into Miles’s bed and wake him up (or keep him from sleeping), she’ll jump on her bed, read books, play dress up… J and I are having to constantly go in her room to tuck her back in bed, but like a jack-in-the-box, she pops out of bed again. I feel like we have tried reasoning with her, being angry and frustrated with her, gently talking to her, screaming at her, punishing her, rewarding her for going to bed right away…EVERYTHING but nothing has worked! We stopped giving Lila naps when she was around 18 months old because she would stay up at night.
It’s 9:15pm as I write this blog. In the other room, I can hear Lila singing to herself and playing with her doll while Miles is fast asleep. This afternoon, Lila screamed at me for ohhh, about a half-hour, because I would not let her nap. Where does this kid get all of her energy? Why don’t kids understand that SLEEP IS A FANTASTIC THING! Just got to sleep my child!
Lila pushing Miles in a stroller at Newport Aquarium
