The War on Sleep

I tried to put him down for his afternoon nap, he refused,
because he needed to help me make dinner. Then this.

Our whole family was wide awake at 4:30am last night. Well, the boys were WIDE awake, Jon and I were walking around like Zombies. Angie was at a "sleep"over, so she was probably wide awake too.

For our kids, sleep is the mortal enemy and they are valiant warriors out to defeat it. Until between 6-6:30am, when it's about time to get moving for the day, then they give up and let sleep win. If sleep were an actual foe, I'd be so proud of their bravery and perseverance. Couldn't they be prayer warriors instead, or fight something actually bad like injustice as if it was their job?

This is how they felt about me trying to get them up and ready for church at
7:43am after keeping us up all night.

Do any of you other parents feel like the majority of your existence, or at least your parenting, is dedicated to getting your children to sleep?

There are the obvious things like a regular bedtime routine, story time, bath, white noise, and a drink of milk, (or whatever works; a touch of Bourbon, Benadryl...no judgement here) to cajole your littles toward slumber.

But what I'm talking about is like from the moment we wake up, the majority of our thoughts and efforts are about getting the rascals back to sleep. Don't get me wrong, my kids are super fun and all, it's not that I don't want them to be awake some, but it's constantly on my mind. Even while I'm still snoozing in the morning, my dreams are plagued with interruptions from my conscious brain, "If you don't wake the boys up now, you'll regret it tonight..."

We all know that if we don't drag them out of bed (no matter how peaceful they are, or how dead tired we are) at a reasonable hour in the morning, they'll never go back to sleep at night. 5 minutes of sleeping-in, leads to 30-60 minutes of extra crazy at night. That is some fuzzy math I do not care for, but there's no point arguing with children that they need to go to sleep because it's past their "bedtime."

Once my brain convinces my unwilling body of the necessity of waking the angels out of their morning coma, the rest of the day is about wearing them out sufficiently to get them back to sleep again in like 12-14 hours.

Every moment at the park/zoo/trampoline/sprayground/playdate/library/treadmill I bank on as burned calories to drain their energy come nightfall. Every meal, we negotiate as much food into them as they'll permit, hoping hunger won't be a reason to stay up or wake up in the middle of the night. We're sure to make one last bathroom run or use the best 12-hour diaper to avoid any unnecessary accidents or late-night potty emergencies.

And just to keep any of it from making sense, we actually have to prevent our children from falling asleep at the wrong time. Isaiah will fight naps and bedtime tooth and nail, UNLESS he's in the car for more than 10 minutes at any (more often than not inappropriate) time, then he'll fall asleep like someone shot him with a tranquilizer gun. And of course, that 5-10 minute car nap will destroy any hopes of the usual 1-2 hours of peace we eagerly await in the afternoon. He's not even 3 years old yet, but I think he's already starting to manipulate me by acting drowsy in his car seat, so that I'll give him my phone to watch videos, as that's the only surefire way to keep him awake while I drive. And he knows I'll do just about anything to salvage a good nap.

Even their tantrums have the silver lining that maybe they'll wear themselves out for bedtime. I would never wish a fever, or any sickness, on my beloved darlings, but if we're looking on the bright side, when they're under the weather they don't have the normal fight in them when it comes to staying up till midnight.

We have the added bonuses of having an extra comfy bed that our munchkins prefer to any other surface (like for example their beds) except of course my EXTRA comfy arms.

If they only knew how precious they look while sleeping,

I'm sure they'd want to do it more.

Someday, my parenting efforts will focus more on discipline, coaching, training, and friendship, but I feel this first stage of parenting revolves around sleep, or lack thereof.

I don't have time to come up with a profound conclusion to these thoughts, I have to go wake up the toddler from his nap, or he'll never get back to sleep tonight! So, I'll leave you with this:

“Bedtime makes you realize how completely incapable you are of being in charge of another human being. My children act like they’ve never been to sleep before. ‘Bed? What’s that? No, I’m not doing that.’ They never want to go to bed. This is another thing that I will never have in common with my children. Every morning when I wake up, my first thought is, ‘When can I come back here?’ It’s the carrot that keeps me motivated. Sometimes going to bed feels like the highlight of my day. Ironically, to my children, bedtime is a punishment that violates their basic rights as human beings. Once the lights are out, you can expect at least an hour of inmates clanging their tin cups on the cell bars.” - Jim Gaffigan