The Bedtime Toddler Blues

Sleep has never come easily for my son. As a newborn, he wouldn’t sleep during the day unless he was held. The moment just before his body touched the crib, his eyes would flutter open and he’d start crying. (“Sleep when the baby sleeps,” my ass.) He was seven months old the first time he slept through the night and over a year by the time he did so consistently. And that was only after a couple of traumatic evenings for all involved. In toddlerhood, he often sings and talks to his animals for a full hour before drifting off. But lately, there’s been a significant shift for the worse.

Toddler Bedtime Blues

None of this is particularly unexpected, considering my family history. Both Chris and I are night owls, as is my mom and his dad. I had night terrors as a kid, my mom had childhood nighttime seizures, and my dad sleepwalked until he was in his mid-20s. While it would be surprising if Sprout didn’t have any sleep issues, it doesn’t make them less exasperating.

In the last year, we thought we had made peace with his sleep schedule. Sure, he stayed up way past his 8:30 bedtime, but considering he wakes up past 7 pm and still takes naps, he got plenty of sleep. As he’s a bit of an introvert, it seemed like that time provided him the private, wind-down space he needed. It’s not like we had a way to force him to fall asleep anyway.

But in the last few weeks, our structure has gone to hell. The first thing to go was our bedtime routine. Normally, it goes: finish dinner, take bath, jump on our bed, get into PJs, read books, brush teeth, have a short conversation about the day, and say goodnight. Each part provides a balance between the boring bits (washing, brushing teeth) and the fun ones (jumping on our bed, reading).

While the routine has a lot of transitions, they only recently became an issue. Sprout has managed to found ways to extend and delay every one of them. From sitting in the tub long after the water has been drained to sprinting away every chance he gets, our bedtime routine has gone from 45 minutes to over an hour. Sometimes his delaying even starts before dinner, when he puts up a giant fuss about washing his hands. Shifting between activities has become increasingly difficult, but if we skip any of them – even allowing him to turn off the lights – there’s a melt-down as well.

The earlier the resistance starts, the more likely there is to be a snowball effect. Just when I think I’ve gotten him all chill, he remembers a grave injustice from 10 minutes earlier and gets upset all over again. All of my tricks from Happiest Toddler on the Block that used to work, like repeating what he’s upset about or promising it in fantasy, just piss him off more. There’s a constant sense of “What the hell is going to upset him this time and how do we deal with it?”

Tonight was a perfect example. Sprout was smiles and giggles until we wanted him to actually do his five jumps on the bed. (We would be fine with skipping them, but he would not.) We got to jump three when he randomly spit up some stomach crud. Chris turned our Green Bay Packers blanket over so that he didn’t jump in vomit, which meant the “Big G” was backwards. This was completely and utterly unacceptable to Sprout. He started crying and refused to jump. Both suggesting he’d do his final jump or skip jumps altogether elicited screams from him.

We finally carried him off the bed, where the angst continued on the changing table for several more minutes. I requested Chris intervene, hoping a change of scenery would help. It didn’t, although I avoided getting kicked hard in my pregnant belly while trying to put a diaper and pajamas on a flailing toddler. The rest of the evening alternated between him loudly expressing his displeasure, saying “I want a hug,” and sitting on my lap with his face in my shoulder. At 9 PM, I placed him in his crib, where I left after 10 minutes of urging him to lie down. Of course, this set off a new round of crying.

After running that obstacle course, all I want to do for the rest of the night is collapse on the couch. Lately, I’ve really wished that came with a glass of wine, but pregnancy has limited my indulgences to chocolate, ice cream, and decaf tea.

Previously, we were safe once he was calm in his crib. But now the resistance has extended far past his official bedtime. Recently, he’s taken to yelling “Mommy mommy mommy” from behind his closed door, sometimes for good reasons (like because he pooped) and sometimes for bad or pointless ones (like telling me “[Sprout] likes basketball” or asking me to tuck him in when he’s chosen to stand up). S

Sometimes it’s between the two. The other night, I went in after his “Mommy, mommy, mommy” suddenly became more intense. I found a bed full of ice cubes and the top to his water cup on the floor. “It’s broken,” he pointed out. I blinked, noticed that his toys were all at the other end of the bed, and asked, “Did you do this on purpose?” He responded, “No. Yes. Took top off and dumped all over.” At least he was honest!

If I was a stay-at-home mom, these bedtime issues would just be the crummy topping on the challenges of being home all day. But at least I would have the rest of the day – when he’s usually good-natured – to look back on.

Instead, this struggle becomes the majority of my weekday interactions with him. I have a fairly long commute, so I’m home at 6:15 PM at the earliest. That gives me maybe 45 minutes of playtime, dinner, and then the constant balancing act of bedtime. I don’t want to give in – and am often incapable of doing what he wants – but I hate both of us being miserable during what should be special time together.

So it just makes me feel like a crappy parent. Because of my commute, we can’t put him to bed earlier without sacrificing time together. Even though I honestly don’t think it’s over-tiredness, I still worry that it’s my fault somehow.

It’s especially frustrating because it reinforces all my worries about having a second kid. I guess it’s good that he’s still willing to stay in his crib and not climbing out, but it makes me even more concerned that he’ll start climbing out at the worst possible time. Furthermore, I’m already anxious about not having enough of my emotional energy to go around and then Sprout finds a way to drain it further. Because he was such a fussy sleeper, I worry that he’s going to wake up his brother and then his brother will start crying and then Sprout will start crying and then no one will ever get any sleep ever again.

I know like all things Kid, that this is a phase. I just really hope that it passes sooner rather than later.

Any suggestions for making bedtime go smoother?

Do It Myself!

“Do it myself!” I could probably live happily without ever hearing those words again. Unfortunately, they – or some variation – are a crucial phrase in every toddler’s vocabulary, including Sprout’s. While I appreciate his need to be independent and all of that bullshit, they’re really annoying in practice.

The phrase arises most often when Sprout is supposed to be doing something that he can do, but isn’t actually doing at the moment. For some reason, it’s the most common in the bathroom. When he’s supposed to be washing his hands, he often just sticks his right hand under the water rather than rubbing them together. Other popular options include splashing in the pool of water or sticking his palm against the faucet so it sprays everywhere. For toothbrushing, he prefers to gnaw on it with his back teeth instead of actually brushing them.

In both of these cases, he knows perfectly well how to do the activity – as I’ve seen him do it correctly – but is utterly uninterested in doing so. He’d much rather mess around playing in the sink or delaying bedtime. However, when I try to help him, he flails his hands and yells, “Do it myself!” While he can, it doesn’t make his futzing any less annoying when dinner is getting cold or his official bedtime is long behind us.

Unfortunately, my options for hurrying him up are limited for both philosophical and practical reasons.

In theory, I could get him to obey by physically forcing him to do it the way I want him to. However, I try to limit my physical enforcement of rules as much as possible to only the most dangerous of situations (like running in the road).

Physical enforcement often goes hand-in-hand with “might-makes-right” and authoritarian parenting, messages that I try to avoid at nearly all costs. The more I can convince Sprout that he should follow the rules because he wants to – or at least feels he should – the more he’ll form a moral compass in the future.

On a sheerly practical level, physical enforcement seems more effort than it’s worth for the stress. In a power struggle between a toddler and an adult, the toddler will always win in some way or another.

For example, the dentist recommended if he wouldn’t let us brush his teeth that one of us hold him between our knees and the other force his mouth open. Because that’s a great way to calm a toddler down before bed! No thank you on the additional half-hour needed to bring him down from a massive tantrum.

In fact, forcing him to do these things can actually be pretty dangerous. When he brushes his teeth or washes his hands, he uses a small stool to reach the sink. If he freaks out, waving his hands and stomping his feet, he could easily fall off it. He’s fallen off “dancing” around, much less throwing an actual tantrum. Slightly cleaner hands done a couple minutes earlier isn’t worth head trauma.

Instead, I try to find alternative ways to motivate him. When he says, “Do it myself!” I tell him, “I know you can – so show me!” Sometimes that works. When he’s spraying water all over the place, I prevent him from getting what he wants by cupping my hands around it so the spray is limited. I’ll only sing the tooth brushing song if he’s actually brushing them correctly. When he does actually do things correctly, I congratulate and praise him heartily.

And sometimes I just breathe deep, put my head in my hands, and wait. Eventually, he’ll do it right if I just give him time. After all, it’s just a phase.

When does your kid (or one you know) say, “Do it myself!!”

A Fine Whine

A few months ago, the primary adjective I would have used to describe my son was “sweet.” While he’s still sweet most of the time, I have lately been periodically barraged by a cacophony of whining. I often wake up bleary, blinking to see a small person either yelling at me or just about to.

Lately, certain times of day are a series of efforts to hold off a meltdown. It had been mornings, which declined, only to be replaced by the return of the dreaded Bedtime and Middle of the Night Yelling. Sometimes I’m able to stave off the yammering by acknowledging his need promptly and responding in a reasonable period of time. I’m not going to drop everything – he needs to learn some patience – but I also want him to feel like I am listening. While less reliably effective than it had been, Dr. Harvey Karp’s Connect with Respect technique does help to an extent.

But some days, I just can’t help him. Sometimes it’s because I cannot under any circumstances figure out what the hell he wants. He’s up to more than 200 words, but that still leaves out a very large portion of the English language. This is an especially big barrier when he launches directly into whining with any prior indicator of need. I can’t parrot back what he wants if I can’t understand a word he’s saying. I’ve taken to looking him in the eye and telling him, “I can’t understand what you want. You need to use a different voice so I can understand you.” We’ve had mixed results. I think it works when he wants something specific and fails when he’s just randomly cranky, often under the influence of teething. Of course, it works the least at 4 AM, when neither of have any idea what we want except to go back to sleep.

Other times, we’re physically incapable of meeting his request, most often associated with the plea of “Up!!” Chris tried to explain to him recently that “No, you can’t go up into the tree to chase the squirrel.” We have a similar problem at the park, where he seems to believe that we have the ability to lift him up high enough to make a basket. As I’m simply not that tall and even the smallest basketball moves only inches from his fingers, it’s simply not practical. I lift him up into my shoulders, but that’s the best I can do.

Then there are other times that I simply won’t give him what he wants because it’s against our rules and values. We have zero tolerance for anything that purposely hurts another person, physically or mentally. Unfortunately, this sometimes conflicts with a toddler’s desire to have All the Things, All the Time, regardless of their actual owner. A few weeks ago, Chris had to physically extract our screaming toddler from the park for the first time because he stole someone else’s ball and refused to give it back. Thankfully, that’s been an isolated incident – so far.

Other times doing the action once is fine, but I don’t want to set a bad precedent. A few weeks ago, I allowed him to sit in my lap once while I was eating breakfast. For the next several days, he was obsessed with wanting to sit on my lap instead of his own chair. As I need my space and like eating my cereal without a small child’s fingers in it, I really didn’t want to make that part of my morning routine. Similarly, he often wants me to read to him in the morning, which I don’t have time to do and get to work at a reasonable hour. These are some of the toughest things because while he knows the schedule in general, he doesn’t understand context yet and is confused as to why sometimes some things are okay and other times they aren’t.

The worst part of the whining is that it’s incredibly emotionally draining. While the noise hurts my ears, the idea of it sets off my self-judgment. Even though I know he’s frustrated by the general unfairness of the world, the constant “Mamamamama” sure sounds like it’s condemning me. The third day of him screaming to sit on my lap, I actually started crying myself. Thank God his public meltdown was with Chris – I might have had one with him.

Thankfully, the whining is declining a little bit, as he starts to realize it isn’t very effective. I hope this self-control of ours is going to pay off soon because I might need to invest in earplugs otherwise.