The hardest part about having a two year old who refuses to go to sleep is the overwhelming jealousy I have towards her. Here she is, at 8:00 PM every night with the opportunity to snuggle up and sleep for a solid 12 hours or more. I would love to sleep that long just once a year, much less every night. And yet she refuses to see the absolute joy there is to be had in dozing calmly off to sleep. She has to make it a miserable war with her on one side and Mom and Dad’s sanity on the other.
I feel like my new mantra these days is “it’s not ideal, but whatever works”. I find myself saying that about nap times, the kids’ dinner choices, cleaning the house, and especially any semblence of my own presentable self. However, lately when it comes to putting Z to bed, not even the un-ideal is working. Our first mode of attack was to just give her a sippy cup of milk in bed and she would fall asleep with that. Then she needed us to sit in there with her after the milk was gone. Then she started waking up two or three times a night, needing one of us to sit with her then too, and brave the perilous walk back out the room. When even that got too hard, I finally just decided to sleep in her room with her once she woke up. First in her bed, but eventually just on the floor next to her. Now that doesn’t even seem to be keeping her asleep. I honestly feel like we are completely out of choices. Letting her scream it out only means she is up for hours getting enormously upset, and driving us insane in the process.
I just wish there as a way for me to impart on her how absolutely fantastic a good night’s sleep is. But since there is not, I guess it’s back to the drawing board to find a new way to get her to fall asleep without making me lose my mind.
