My Toddler Won’t Sleep

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My almost-two-year-old doesn’t sleep. He has never slept. Apparently, it’s not a requirement for him and that is where we differ. I consider sleep to be essential to happiness. When I say he doesn’t sleep, I mean that he prefers to sleep directly next to me, often waking up and demanding I nurse him. We have tried all of the tips and tricks, but he is a degree of stubborn we have not experienced before. As our third child, I was pretty sure we had the whole baby/toddler sleep thing worked out. And God continues to laugh at my naive optimism. The best-laid plans…

Last night was the worst so far of the third child rejecting sleep. He cried and cried. He cried in his crib; he cried in our bed. He cried when I held him, and when I nursed him. For no apparent reason, he refused comfort in any form I dared offer and wouldn’t deign to sleep at all. Periodically, he would whip his head back, flash me a huge grin and try to wriggle away from me. He called into the night for his brothers to rescue him from my restrictive embrace. At one point he started speaking in Parseltongue…I think. I’m not sure, because I’m exhausted. 

But he is also very, very cute. I’m extremely biased, but that menacing smile of his could sell diapers or something. And if I had to describe motherhood thus far in a nutshell, that would be it. Being run ragged every day by the absolute cutest humans on earth. At some point, I guess that will change. I will sleep again one day, and hopefully, I won’t feel as tired anymore. But my tiny Slytherin will not have a face that could sell diapers. Of course, as my children, they will all be exceptionally handsome, but the cute chubby faced grin of mischief will be gone. I know that because I have read 100 blogs about it. I have heard it countless times from older moms who miss their little babes. There are whole mantras devoted to the idea that mothering littles is just a snapshot in time that darts by in a flash. I know it, and I try to embrace it, but I don’t always feel it.

What I feel is tired. I feel a deep longing to be an autonomous person who doesn’t have a toddler physically attached to her. I wonder endlessly about what deep sleep feels like and how much of it I would need to feel rested. According to Fitbit, I got a whole nine minutes last night, but somehow that didn’t do the trick. I feel my eyelids closing, ready to whisk me off to a dream about reading a good book with a cuppa hot coffee in a quiet room. 

On occasion, I  have shared these feelings with other moms just to be bombarded with advice about how to get my son to sleep through the night. I am encouraged with words like ‘self-care’ and told that just a few sleepless nights of crying will end in many years of uninterrupted sleep. But I just can’t do it. It doesn’t work for us. He cries. I get zero minutes of deep sleep and my mental health gets dangerously low after a night or two of that.  I have tried comforting him, ignoring him, going away, sleeping in another room, and lathering us both up in essential oils before bed so my essence mingled with the herbs of antiquity will soothe my savage toddler. And yet, here I am. Tired. Again.  I don’t need any more advice. I need to hear, “Ugh. That Sucks.” and that I am not the only one half-conscious on the couch at  2 a.m. counting down the hours until sunrise while my toddler won’t sleep. And if you’re in the same sleepless boat that I am, take heart because you’re not alone. And ugh, this sucks. 

Post Script: He-who-must-not-be-named has started sleeping in his crib. Sort of. He wakes up screaming between 3 and 300 times per night and often decides that 4:30 am is the perfect time to start the day. After a”few” sleepless weeks we have not yet achieved a ‘lifetime of peaceful sleep’. His midnight fits have had one positive outcome however: His Parseltongue is coming along quite nicely.

 

1 COMMENT

  1. Thanks, I needed a good laugh (through the tears of exhaustion). My 34 month old is currently working on Klingon or Troll (it’s hard to tell through the monitor) as he rolls around in his crib. So yeah ugh, this sucks. Funny thing though, if someone were to ask if I would change anything about him I don’t think I could answer yes.

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