To Sleep, Perchance to Dream . . .

When will my son learn to sleep? Many people I know with almost - two - year - olds have children that sleep. Some of them even have kids that put themselves to bed at night, or tell their parents when they want to sleep.

We had about 2 glorious weeks of sleep, when my son would say "go sleep now" and we would happily go off to bed and "quickly" (for Andrew that means in under two hours) fall asleep. Unfortunately Dave's watch broke. And we were invited for two evening visits in the same week. And since he had no watch and he was busy being interested in the people we were visiting, our whining son and my many reminders of "we really need to be going" just didn't sink in. So he stopped beleiving that mommy would put him to bed when he was tired and he could peacefully fall to sleep. So he stopped sleeping again.

Now, instead of Andrew falling asleep right around 9 on the dot, he is falling asleep closer to 11. This is after the usual bath - stories - nursing and songs and backrubs routine, followed by any number of other "essential" bedtime things, such as the backpack ride with mom when she needs to get things done, the car ride with dad, the stroller ride if Dad has the car, the cuddle stories in bed, the late night snacks, the "I give up just go and play while I ignore you and do something on the internet" times, and, my favorite -- the time when I marched our bleary eyed but not sleeping son into the study and passed him off to Dad, saying "I have put this child to sleep for 21 months now. I have woke with him in the middle of the night and every morning. It is your turn to deal with him." Its one of those times when you have a nice, peaceful night and you think "aha! I have it now!" only to find that it only worked that night . . . and never works again.

Ah well, in a few years I can just put him in bed and he can pretend to sleep when he thinks I'm there and read in bed with a flashlight or the light from his closet which is cleverly attatched to a long string so that it can be activated from his bed . . . not that I have any experience with such things. The point is, eventually he can not sleep and bother no one but himself. Inevitably by that time I will no longer have babies and toddlers in the house and so I will also be prowling around late at night sewing, writing, emailing, and otherwise getting up to mischeif. Hey, wait a minute . . . maybe there's something to that whole genetics thing.