Mourning the midday sleep

Xav was a shocker of a sleeper as a baby.

His very first night on earth he screamed ALL.DAMN.NIGHT. I'm talking, loud screaming, from about 9pm until about 4am, I was exhausted from the birth and trying to settle him with lots of feeds and cuddles. In the end, Mum got him to sleep with her and I fell in a heap on the lounge room floor.

From about 1 y/o onwards though, he loved his sleep. Finally sleeping through the night at 16 months, when he stopped waking for a feed and has barely given us a bad night since. Well, except for the gazillion ear infections that he had - then it was more nights of screaming!

His day sleeps (since about 1 y/o) have been great. He is a little boy that understands his sleep needs, and would trudge off to his room and put himself to bed. All he'd need was his blankie and dummy and he'd settle in for a nice 2-3 hour nap. Bliss.

Well, that's what he used to do.


Last week I was getting him ready for his afternoon nap, but he was protesting saying that he didn't want to sleep. "Oh, don't be silly Xav, your body still needs a rest - C'mon lets go get blankie" I asked him as I nervously shuffled him up to his room.

That is when my little boy made a statement that very nearly sent me to the corner rocking - right then and there.

I'm not going to sleep in the daytime anymore. I'm only going to sleep at nighttime - when it is dark. He declared to me, quite matter of factly.

And he hasn't. Nope, seems this kid is a boy true to his word. He has had the occasional car sleep, but won't even transfer anymore.

NO, NO, NO, NO. This is not in my plan. The middle of the day is for ME, to do whatever I want. Grace has finally fine tuned quiet time, and potters around by herself - leaving me to do my own thing. Throw Xav into the mix and quiet time DOES NOT exist, more like fight, scream, yell and generally cause havoc time. See, not relaxing for ME at all.

*Sigh*

So, it seems there will be less of this:




And more of this:

Great, just great.