Want to document what I have been struggling with lately.
One word: sleep. The kids’ sleep affects my sleep.
Since they switched to toddler beds, their nap has been different. Okra still falls asleep but he doesn’t sleep for three hours anymore. Bunny is the one who creates a lot of trouble for me. She doesn’t need the nap most of the days. (Or maybe she needs it but she just fights it.) When she is asked to lie down for quiet time, she often hangs her legs out of the bed. She’d start singing loudly or dance around the room. I am constantly on the monitor watching her and going over there to tell her to lie down. It is tiring. If Okra is not asleep already, Bunny gets him all riled up and nobody naps. When Okra doesn’t nap, he gets very cranky in the afternoon. If Okra is asleep, he is deep asleep and usually Bunny’s singing doesn’t bother him or wake him up. Occasionally her noises wake him up and he starts crying and throwing a tantrum because of not getting enough rest. I want to avoid that as much as possible. A few days ago, I offered her something that may be the solution to our problem. I started letting Bunny listen to story podcasts, audio books, or songs on my iPad. The headphones we bought them for the trip to Hong Kong and India come in handy. When she uses them, she is more tied down to the bed so she won’t get up and dance around too often. This activity seems to keep her in bed and quiet for at least an hour. That is enough for Okra to quiet down and fall asleep. She occasionally calls out to me to help her adjust something. Other than that, it largely keeps her occupied quietly and allows me some time to lie down and rest, and allows Okra to nap for at least 1.5 hours. Because I am still watching her, I lie down and rest but don’t usually fall asleep. She calls me over to help her with choosing a different song or book so I don’t quite get the rest that I need. It’s better than not having some rest though.
If both kids nap, they don’t fall asleep until 9ish to 10pm. They would call me in their room over and over again asking for everything under the sun. These days Bunny doesn’t nap, it is easier to get them down at a reasonable hour (around 8:15pm) and Bunny would fall asleep right away. Okra, since he has napped for over an hour, doesn’t fall asleep as easily. Some days he lies there and blinks until he is tired. Some other days he keeps on calling me until I tell him that his sister would leave and go sleep with us if he continues making noise. He would comply and eventually fall asleep at around 8:45 to 9pm. A couple of weeks ago, both kids would wake up in the middle of the night calling for me. Some nights it was just one time. Other nights it was three to four times. They would call for me to cover them with their blankets, for a drink of water, or just for the heck of it. After 4 times, I would get very frustrated and just want to go back to sleep. They did it for about a week and needless to say, those few days I felt like a zombie. No personal time in the morning because I hadn’t slept well the night before so I couldn’t get up early. No personal time in the afternoon when one of them wouldn’t nap. In the evening after they went down I was so tired that I couldn’t do anything. It was like we had gone back to the newborn stage of waking up multiple times a night. After a week of that, I found myself being frustrated a lot more easily and yelling at them much more frequently. It was not a good situation. Things have improved after that one week of very little sleep. I leave a leakproof water bottle at each of their bedside so they can access it in the middle of the night. Some nights they sleep through, some other nights they call me in once or twice. At least it hasn’t been every single night so it’s been okay. But boy, without adequate sleep, life is so much harder. Hopefully now that they are used to the toddler beds, they will continue to adjust their sleep so I can hopefully go back to sleeping 8 hours a night.