Sleep: A Nightmare or Dream
Jul 6, 2009 New
Sleep is a sensitive subject among parents with kids of any age. Are they sleeping? Do they have nightmares? Do they sleep in their own bed or the family bed? Do they go to bed at 8 or 10? Do you allow them to have a snack before bed time? If you want to get into a scrap with a parent simply suggest that they are doing something wrong with setting sleep rules for their kids.
What is equally true is that sleep and kids also has its funny or sweet moments among the stress that you are doing something wrong. We only need to look as far as the statement “Sleep like a baby” to see the humour in sleep 
We worried for some time that my youngest would take after the oldest and not sleep through the night until he was 10 months old. Fortunately, the monkey began sleeping through the night and napping much earlier and continues (knock on wood) to be great sleeper. He is an incredibly sound sleeper – even is own drastic movements don’t wake him. We can guarantee that whatever position Z is put down in – he will be in the opposite direction before long. In fact, the only thing that seems to bother him at sleep time is when he can’t locate his favourite bear. This causes tears in the middle of the night, but only requires someone putting the bear back in his arms – and all is still once again. Coming in to Z’s room in the middle of the night and finding him curled up in a ball with his teddy bear is one of the sweet moments.
Our oldest is now a great sleeper, after 1 1/2 years of torture of course. Sometimes he pulls the “I don’t want to sleep” stunts which include:
- I need water
- One more book!
- It is dark in my room
- Where is X, Y, or Z toy
But, generally he does not fuss before bed.
He does occasionally wake in the middle of the night. And, these are the moments that are painful at the time they happen, and funny when we look at them. O insists on sleeping with toys, not squishy cuddly stuffed toys – but the flavour of the week car or truck. Recently that toy has been a Buzz Lightyear that he got for his birthday. Buzz is hard plastic, with buttons that cause the toy to make space ship noises, and it to say “To infinity and beyond!”. So one night O comes into the room and when asked why he is awake at 2 a.m he answers “Buzz Lightyear is making too much noise”. The following night he made Buzz sleep downstairs. Another recent mid-night reply was “There is a shadow in my room, and it is shaped like a shark. He has his mouth open”. In the morning O will come into the room and stand there until you wake up and get a shock from seeing him standing there, or he will run in excitedly telling you it is “wakie” time. If you decline getting out of bed he will open the curtains and show you that it is in fact “wakie” time because the sun is out. This morning he did the stand there routine, and when I didn’t immediately feel his presence in the room he touched my face. I jumped out of my skin, and before I could get mad at him for almost causing me to have a heart attack he looked at me sweetly, touched my face again, tilted his head to the side and said “I love you mommy”.
So while, I am sure I have made mistakes with setting the stage for sleep in my house, and complained often about the patterns that the kids have had…sleep has caused us just as much laughter as anguish.
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