Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Sleeping like a baby

Sleeping ToddlerI have come to a revelation in the difference between adults and toddlers in terms of falling asleep.

To illustrate, picture going to bed. What do you do? First off, of course, there's all the rigamarole of brushing your teeth and getting ready, but I mean the very basics, after you've turned off the light. You climb into the bed, lie down, pull up the covers, and ...

.. you close your eyes!

Yes, that's the difference. Toddlers skip this crucial step. And that's why it takes my 17-month-old so dang long to fall asleep each night!

Is it against any sort of legal or ethical codes to Super Glue little eyelids?

Yeah, thought so. Sigh. Maybe just Elmer's?

Now imagine how not to fall asleep, supposing some giant had cruelly placed you into a bedroom and snuggled you close in the bed, trying to convince you to give in and lower your defenses with sinister back rubs and a warm drink. You might keep your eyes strained toward any movement of interest, refuse to lie down in case your body took that as a sign to relax, squirm and kick the wall to keep the adrenaline pumping, screech and sing to keep your mind active, and when the giant was distracted (say, while typing a blog post), you might attempt a stealthy crawl for freedom.

There's Mikko right now, fighting hard at 1:23 a.m.

Toddlers act like sleep is a surrender, a capitulation, rather than a goal to be sought.

Silly toddlers. Don't they know how much they'll miss sleep when they're our age?


Image courtesy of Dez Pain on sxc.hu

2 comments:

Wilderness Mama said...

I've only coslept with my 3rd and now 4th, and IME, it helps immensely by going to bed with them! I'm a night owl though, so it's usually DH that gets him to sleep.

I remember my first at that age. It was around that time that someone finally hit me over the head and made me realize that I cannot *make* him get to sleep! So he weaned off of naps and was no longer napping at all (except maybe on rare occasion) by 2 1/2 or so. He started going to sleep immediately at night though, so it was a great trade-off! :) Through my experience with him, I decided to lighten up on the whole naptime thing for my other kids too. Now they fall asleep easily any time they're sleepy! Makes my job a ton easier! LOL!

Lauren Wayne said...

You're totally right on the futility of trying to make someone else go to sleep! :) I remember my mom told me I stopped napping by 2, as well.

If only I didn't so much love the time he's asleep, since it's the only time I can get anything done!!

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