My two-year-old son is a seasoned professional in the sleep regression field, but seems to be starting his transition back to his reliable snooze during the day. I say this cautiously, as today was the first day in almost two weeks when he napped. It wasn’t enough to spare me from an odd mix of sweetly clingy and dismally cranky, with a side of impulsive destruction as the late afternoon progressed into evening, but I’ll take it.
There are all kinds of reasons for sleep regression specific to this age, but Mr. Man’s brand is concern for missing out on Mommy time. If I weren’t so tired, this would be endearing. The genesis of this problem is my fault, really. A combination of me assuming a toddler equates an oblivious human, and his delayed speech pressing me to forget exactly how finely attuned his receptive language is, prompted me to lament to anyone who would listen on the phone how the Warrior Queen spent the duration of Little Man’s nap sleeping on me for several days in a row. The fateful afternoon in question began his naptime with my son waiting in his crib while I trekked downstairs to retrieve his disgusting bacteria and disease carrying stuffed dog, as well as my wailing daughter. He screamed, “Baby! Baby!” repeatedly between fits of tears once I returned with her nestled in my arms. That was it. He hasn’t taken a nap since despite his blatant need for some shut-eye. Seriously, two months of night time feedings didn’t have me looking as tired and ragged as Little Man during the past couple weeks. Today he napped, a paltry forty-five minutes, but it’s a start, and hopefully a sign of what’s to come…for everyone’s sanity.
But, today I waited too long to retrieve my son from his crib. The process of sleep training my son, and my daughter intermittently requiring me to hold her for significant durations throughout my son’s “quiet time,” left me getting little done and having almost no break in the last couple weeks. So, I took it upon myself to enjoy a lovely piece…or two…okay, four…of my favorite dark chocolate hazelnut bar while my daughter actually slept without me needing to intervene. My son was awake and standing, but if he suspected I had chocolate, he’d climb my face to get to it…not even kidding. My delay consequently, had me pay the piper once I retrieved him. Not only did he become suddenly upset between the thirty seconds it took me to clean every ounce of chocolate off of my fingers and reach his door, but then my daughter began passionately screaming downstairs as I pulled him up.
In the six weeks since my parents left, I’ve become a bit of an aficionado at managing situations when at least one of the three of us is unhappy. Warrior Queen needed to eat, and I needed Conan the Destroyer to chill until I could satiate my daughter well enough to reasonably tend to him. Maybe cartoons work for some parents. I haven’t used that piece of potential arsenal yet, but Mr. Man loves watching home recordings of himself as a baby. He’s also rather partial to his sister’s first bath video; it’s usually first on the viewing docket.
The home movies worked their magic for a bit. My daughter was able to chug a good amount of her formula. My son was entertained with videos of him laughing at the wind through the leaves when he was six-months-old, but then he decided to attempt calling Guam, reaching past my computer for our home phone. Movies done; my daughter notsomuch.
The next intervention for a generally disquieted Mr. Man following an insufficient rest works about half the time. Usually not when I’m in the middle of tending to his sister, but it’s easy enough to try. I enthusiastically offer to read him a story. Surprisingly, Little Man scampers off to the other room, and I hear him retrieving items from the appropriate shelf. He wastes no time returning, laying a book in front of me while his sister continues to inhale the contents of her bottle. I hadn’t read this specific story to him since I was pregnant, but I guess he had a yen for, You Were the First.
A Tale of Two Mommies 