I’d forgotten how unrelentingly awful sleeping with a toddler is.

We’ve pretty successfully transitioned Niko to sleeping in his own bed, although he wakes up a few times a night and needs attention, and putting him down can take an hour or more which WHEE FUN! Sometimes I think “FUCK IT” because he’d gotten to a point, sleeping in our bed, where he’d go down in just a few minutes and I hate a drawn out bedtime ritual (which, just throwing this out there, is the worst when Nesko does it because that means Nesko is home, and Niko wants to party with him instead of sleep).

Sometimes Niko wakes up early in the morning and gets into bed with us/me and I don’t really care. He snoozes a bit longer, I get to continue lying in bed with no demands on me, whatever. Usually Nesko is already out of bed and getting ready for or already left for work. Then, the other day, Niko woke up and got into bed with us at 5:00 am after a very long and protracted falling asleep and also woke up several times during the night and Nesko and I were both too tired to put him back to bed. I’d forgotten just how much I hate sleeping with a toddler. He rolled around like a rotisserie toddler. He kicked me repeatedly, in the “drumming his heels on me” way. He got his fingers tangled in my hair and yanked it while thrashing around. He pushed at me. He tried to burrow his head inside of me. He stuck his feet under me. WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS.

It really strengthened my resolve to not let him into bed with us unless it’s morning and we’re just chillin’, even when he cries and says he’s lonely, even when he begs us to sleep with him “just a little bit” and pats his pillow and says we can lie down “on this spot right here.” Fffffffffffffffffff. NO MORE.

Does that sound cruel? He’s actually pretty good about sleeping by himself, especially at nap time. Nap time is usually not a struggle at all. In fact, he’ll finish eating lunch and say he’s ready to sleep now, and we calmly do our business and read two stories and I tuck him in and make sure he has his water and his objects of affection (Canada the moose, Carl the elephant, Other Carl the other elephant, Medo the panda bear (“medo” is how you say “bear” ins Srpski, so he has a bear named bear), Emily the Steam Engine and her Tender, his Special Blue Blanket) and give him some hugs and kisses and that’s it. He sacks out for 2-5 hours and while I can’t get anything done in the kitchen, I can pick up the living room or the dining room or work on lesson plans for the student I tutor or just sit on my butt and surf the net. You know. Whatever.

The little bits of regressing he’d been doing (crawling, and referring to himself as “a crawling baby!”, needing every single pacifier in the entire house in bed with him, asking for a bottle– something he gave up when he was 13 months old, with no fight at all) are easing off, although he still wants his pacifier ALL THE TIME when we’d already weaned him during the day, and he’s chewing on EVERYTHING including his fingers/hands (is he teething? HE HAS ALL HIS TEETH. Any teeth coming in are UNWANTED EXTRAS).

And at night, I stretch out in the middle of the bed (not the edge of it) and curl up with my husband and nobody kicks me or punches me. It is GLORIOUS.

 

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