Sleep, Perchance to Dream...

For all the problems, (minor toddler related not listening, stubborn girl related issues) Reagan causes during the day, she is awesome at night. She requires little or no "night time parenting." When she is ready to sleep, she sleeps. Her bedtime routine works like a charm: three books, goodnight, give her a book in her crib, leave a light on, and 3 scream-free minutes later -- blissful slumber. Her brother on the other hand ...
requires quite a bit of energy and commitment to get to sleep. And ever more throughout the night. Since he is in bed and not crib, he has the ability to get out of bed.

He uses that ability -- often, to climb into Mommy and Daddy's bed. So there is four of us in our bed, Mommy, Daddy, Maggie (the dog) and Tiernan. I wouldn't mind, as much if he didn't take over the bed. And he always seems to claim my space for his own. There have been many mornings, when I wake up in his bed and he's blissed out in my space on the bed.

There are some nights when I put him back in his own bed four or five times. I wouldn't mind if that didn't require that I woke up four or five times in night.

I hope this is a phase, but it is getting worse. He fights us at bedtime. The child has never been tired. NEVER. He's fallen sleep watching TV and will wake up as I am carrying him upstairs to bed, and he insists that he's not tired.

The very mention of bed time will bring on a trip to "the whinery" -- you know where "the whine" comes from. "I don't want (sniff, sniff) to go to bed. (sigh) I not tired! Please...(sniff, sniff) please... (eyes welling, tears streaming)I wanna go back down (sniff)stairs." The whine is bitter and not pleasing, with not so subtle hints of obnoxiousness, anger, and brat. It is the brat that really leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Too much whine and I become an angry-sleep deprived drunk.

I think we're going to have to try to rectify this situation using the same reward system we used for potty training. One week of fight-free bedtimes and no nocturnal visits and he can get new toy. I like this approach, but I don't want everything to be about getting new toys.

Because, the other day he unilaterally decided that he no longer needed to use his Bob The Builder potty seat any more and he was a big boy and could go on the regular seat. And he did and hasn't used the potty seat since, but twice he's asked if he gets a new toys for going on the big potty. Maybe we'll try a visit to Chuck E Cheeze instead.