Skip to main content

Toddlers and sleep.

So, I wanted to document Collins’ sleeping progression so I’ll have something to look back on if the boys go through this one day.  Boring post, but MAYBE….just maybe, someone else is going through this and it will help them out!

 

My girl was the ABSOLUTE BEST SLEEPER in the world for the first 2.5 years of her life.  Started sleeping through the night at 7 weeks old and never looked back.  Always took two good naps a day and transitioned into one nap just fine.  At night, she would tell us she was ready to go to bed sometimes:-) We would always put her right down, give her a kiss and leave the room and she was FINE.  Would sleep till 8:30 almost every weekend.  A DREAM come true.  

 

And then….and then something changed.  Right around the time she was 2.5 (maybe a bit before that)… we were living with my parents and she started waking up in the middle of the night SCREAMING.  This happened a few times….who knows? Night terrors?  And then…while still living with my parents we started having a REALLY hard time getting her down at night.  She would scream/cry and Mikey (who is the better negotiator/more patient parent) would always be able to talk her to sleep, but sometimes it would take 20 minutes.  *where had our wonderful sleeper gone??? And why was this happening RIGHT before the boys were due?!? AAAHHHH!!!!* She eventually got over the screaming part after a few weeks….but the “talking her to sleep/taking forever” kept up for months.  I don’t know if it was a combination of all the changes (moving in with my parents, moving to a new house, having two babies born, etc.) or just a typical toddler sleeping pattern (as a lot of my friends said their kids did this too)… but lordy me!  There was a point in time when I wondered if it would ever be easy to put her down to sleep again…. And I’m here to say, there is:-) 

I would say though, for about 4-6 months, putting her to bed at night was a challenge and quite time consuming.  We’d have to leave the door open/light on or something.  She also went through a phase when she would wake up in the middle of the night and come to our room.  Happy to note that phase passed as well, but much quicker.  This was more recent, and I’m sitting here thinking “I’ve got twin boys who sleep thru the night but I am getting up 3 times to put their big sister back to bed!!”  We never put her in bed with us, unless it was after like 6 am… and I would always take her straight back to her bed.  This went on for about a month, but at the time it seems so long! 

 

I’m happy to report all seems back to normal lately.  She hasn’t woken up in the middle of the night in a long time…. And going to bed at night doesn’t take forever.  I mean, don’t get me wrong; she’s still a toddler and there’s still a nightly checklist before bed.  Ours includes: two books, prayers, spelling her name out loud, turning on the night light, making sure all her stuffed animals are accounted for and getting her a “fresh” cup of water.  But, there are no tears and no aggravation from the parents.  She still sleeps 10-11 hours at night and takes about a two hour nap every day. 

 

So, there it is………..hoping we’ve come out on the other side of any toddler sleeping issues and reminding myself none of it lasted too long and it comes and goes so quickly!  Hopefully the boys won’t go thru this, wishful thinking?!  ;-)


And because what's a post without a picture?!


Love these three with all my heart.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's in a name?

I tell ya, the name game is HARD. Really hard. I never thought that I'd be 27 years old and pregnant and not know what I wanted to name my child. I *think* we have come up with the one , but I'm not quite ready to put it out for the world to see...you know, don't want to many people rushing to get monogrammed bubbles. Ha! Jokes! Anyways...so I can look back and remember what all we went thru to come up with a name in 20 years I am going to lay it all out there. I'll start with saying I want a family name to be somewhere in my children's names. It doesn't have to be a first name, but some name in the child's name I want to be from a family member/family. We'll start with boys names, because they got taken off the table when we found out it was a GIRL..this will be short. Mikey's middle name is Thomas...his grandfather's name is Thomas. So...we always said Thomas would be in our son's name. I always thought it would be cool to do a Tho...
6 comments
Read more

Takeover Tuesday

Surprise Caro, guess who hacked into your blog! I know what you are saying to yourself...I can’t believe it’s taken this long for me to mess with you on here. For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, this obviously is not your sweet Caroline, this is her wonderful, sarcastic, fun loving, baby daddy (or is it babies’ daddy now?), also known as her husband. (Caro at her finest, throwing me a great 25th birthday celebration) Where do I begin…. I guess we can talk about how this marital bliss came to be before we talk about the author of this blog and how amazing she. Caroline has been the love of my life for as long as I can remember, we were actually first grade boyfriend and girlfriend if you can believe it. After first grade, there was the great divide, as both of us went to different schools the following year. Finally, after 10 agonizing, lonely years we were reunited at a house party our senior year in high school. I, naturally, had always kept an eye on her throughou...
4 comments
Read more

25 weeks....yesterday!

Holy moly!!!! Baby Girl is doing some maaaayjah GROWING:) How far along? 25 weeks. Size of the baby? 13.5 inches and a pound and a half, grow baby girl, grow! Also known as an “average rutabaga”…um, okay. I’ll take Baby Center’s word for it. Maternity Clothes? Same as last week. My wardrobe is shrinking! I have bought several maternity tops, but most of them still look way too big. Still haven’t made the transition to maternity pants even though the bella band aggravates me sometimes. It’s the worst with my work pants, it constantly rolls down. I need to just suck it up and make the switch. Stretch Marks? None have appeared yet, still using the Palmer’s and Bio Oil a few times a week. Movement? Same. It’s so crazy how hard my belly gets at night, it is like she is all knotted up in one place. And the BELLY gets insanely BIG at night! Sleep? Eh…it’s been okay lately. I toss and turn a bunch. Food Cravings? Nothing crazy yet. I have been eating lots of peanu...
3 comments
Read more