Getting two children to sleep, stay asleep and sleep past 5:00 a.m. is an Olympic event in our house.
- Once your darling toddler is sleeping through the night again (after a brief, 9 month hiatus of getting 16 teeth), she wakes at 5:00 a.m. for a diaper change. This isn’t much to complain about if you usually rock her for 2 hours in the middle of the night, but still, 5:00 a.m. is early.
- Your toddler quickly falls back to sleep, at which point your 4-year-old immediately wakes up and asks “is it time to wake up, Momma?” in that really loud, awake-sounding voice that means he is definitely not falling back to sleep. You know the voice. Resistance is futile.
- You try everything under the sun to
forceencourage said child to stay in bed: night lights that change colour at parents’ preferred wake time, numbers printed above a digital clock with a hopeful “7:00”, begging, pleading. These things work sometimes with a singleton. It is all a little more complicated when there is an eagle-eared, sleeping toddler on the other side of a paper-thin wall. - At every 5:00 a.m. wake up you promise yourself that you will go to bed early that night. Even if you dragged yourself around like a wet blanket all day, you will get an instant second wind the minute everyone is asleep. You stay up way too late, wake at 5:00 the next day and the pattern repeats itself over and over.
- On the day you have a babysitter booked and really, really want your toddler to have a good nap she won’t. She will have trouble getting to sleep. You will need to change her diaper two extra times. The minute she is finally sleeping your preschooler will run up the stairs, yelling, “Momma? Momma? Where ARE you?” and the little one’s eyes will burst open.
- When your youngest is between 12 and 18 months old and (some days) you manage to function somewhat normally, you will sit in the rocking chair, hum Ave Maria and stare at the beautiful, precious child in your arms. That vanilla-cupcake baby smell, the soft hair, velvety-smooth cheeks and tiny baby breaths make it all worthwhile. 🙂
You may also like:
https://murphymusthavehadkids.com/2012/06/24/oh-bedtime/
https://murphymusthavehadkids.com/2012/06/21/sleeping-through-the-night-murphys-law-3/
murphy must have had kids 
I thoroughly enjoyed this post 🙂 while I’ve only got my hands full with one, I vividly remember her tenacious and adorable toddler years and sometimes still feel that way as we try to get her to sleep in her bed the whole night! You are a Supermomma!
Reblogged this on ochelepep and commented:
Its natural
Why isn’t there a prize for Moms (and Dads) who do childcare? Bravo, and an Olympic gold medal for Survivial-With-Good-Cheer to you! (And all the other Moms and Dads without whom, us childless folk wouldn’t have anyone to pass the world on to.)
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Lol! Glad I could help.