There are a lot of things Toby does well.
He's a good eater. He sits with us at the table and eats all kinds of food.
He helps me bake and make dinner.
He vacuums.
He's good at wielding a hammer (even if a lot of the time the blows are directed at my furniture)
He's great with words.
He can draw things that actually almost look like things.
But Toby has never been good at sleeping.
Ever.
He's never been able to put himself to sleep and thus has gotten used to nursing to sleep because it's the only thing that will keep him from screaming to the point of being sick.
But now he's starting to get to the point where he doesnt think he needs a nap and is also getting bored of nursing but doesnt know how to stop.
So naptime is a nightmare.
He doesn't want me to rub his back.
He lets me read books while he plays with his toes and kicks around his bed.
Yesterday he started kicking my head so I left and he screamed for half an hour and threw everything off his bed and almost broke the gate at our door.
Today he very pleasantly went up to bed, picked some books, and lay down with me to nurse. I turned his Sleep Sheep on and we read and he had his eyes closed and it was fine.
Then he suddenly un-latches and starts talking to himself.
So fine, he does that a lot, I ignored him and kept humming lullabies.
Then he crawls over top of me and sits in his pile of books and reads to himself.
So fine, I closed my eyes and tried sleeping. Sometimes he gets bored and comes back.
I opened my eyes after who knows how long and hes turning my flashlight off and on right in his eyes.
I took that away and asked him to come have a nap.
He laughed.
I closed my eyes again and ignored him.
I opened my eyes again after who knows how ling and realized we'd been lying in bed for an hour.
"Toby this is stupid, you need to have a nap please I have stuff to do"
"...Stupid..." *wild laughter*
....great.
He finally came back to nurse and has his eyes closed and was curled up in blankets.
And then he started pinching me, which seems to be his favourite falling asleep passtime.
I removed his hand.
He did it again.
I removed his hand.
He groaned really loudly.
I asked him not to pinch me.
He sat up and picked his nose.
I rolled over.
He started jumping on his bed.
"Ok whatever Toby, I have stuff to do, you can play by yourself"
"STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!"
"Ok enough"
*wild giggles*
So now he's got a plate of yellow pepper and cold potato and playing duplo while I"m trying to get work done but and now distracted by venting through my blog lol.
Some battles just aren't worth half a day of misery.
good old crying until puking. ugh.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens if he doesn't have a nap? Would he go to bed a little earlier for you, and allow you to get some stuff done then?
Trust me, I feel your pain, mama.
Sometimes he goes to bed earlier, but then i stay up just as late and he wakes up early and I'm not rested for the next day. And sometimes he's still up till 10.
ReplyDeleteIt's moreso that i need a break from him in the middle of the day and not so much that i have a zillion things to do (which I still do).
But today he's actually been pretty independant, he's been playing by himself and watching home videos.
Whooooooooo knows when he'll go to bed...
boo.
ReplyDeleteLaura is currently fighting bedtime. ugh.
Parents should be able to dictate when it is time to sleep and babies should automatically comply. Next evolutionary step...
it's 9:24 and he's still awake... helping my mom wash dishes...I think i'm going to just sleep whenever he goes down..
ReplyDeleteI thought of something else that might be more helpful.
ReplyDeleteI read a blog post somewhere a little while ago about a mom with a toddler who had dropped nap time. She had another small baby, and reallllly relished her toddler's nap time, so when he was ready to quit napping, she was not happy about it. The thing is, little kids still need "down time", so what she did was arrange for him to have a quiet time in his room in the afternoon for about 45 minutes in place of his nap. She had a rotation of activities that she would set out for him to entertain himself, and if he asked to come out before the 45 minutes was up, she would say only if he had done all 3 activities... I think some of the examples she used were age-appropriate puzzles (ones that weren't too hard for him to do by himself, but weren't too easy that he'd be bored), picture books, Playdough maybe?
Anyway, if you'd like to read it I can try to find it again...
My kids were horrible sleepers and they too gave up naps early-around 2.5 if not earlier...it did help with an earlier bedtime though but that didn't get consistent until they hadn't napped consistently because man can they fight sleep until it catches up with them! I feel your pain and I liked the other suggestions too. Once I stopped night nursing (still nurse to sleep) Zach started sleeping better through the night but it took about a week of crying and saying no and not a lot of sleep :( Good luck!!
ReplyDelete