chicagodads

During their infancy and throughout their young childhood, children change in their sleep habits. It’s something that we parents can try to adapt and mold, but certain trends are going to continue no matter what we do. For instance, an old pastor’s second-born is impossible to get up early in the morning. Since I was the church’s youth director, I would ask if he could come to certain evening functions only to be informed that he would have to leave early as he had to go down by a certain time during school nights. I think of this because, during winter break, he would post his facebook status as “just got up” at 3:30 pm.

My wife can survive and do miraculous things (like function) on virtually no sleep for several nights straight - without caffeine! I, now entering my mid-30’s, am coming to realize that I need a lot more sleep than I want to admit - and I always have.

And just when I think I have the science figured out with our daughter, she blows it all away. She normally gets up around 7 am. Goes down for a two-hour at noon and goes down for the night at 7:30. Now the only thing seeming to be consistent is that she’ll resist the afternoon nap until 2, 3, or more likely 4 o’clock. So when she wakes up, we have to get ready to put her back to bed. She may be in bed the other times, but often she’s not sleeping - sometimes actively railing against the cruel hands that have put her to rest, other times quietly mourning the unjust policies of the ideology of sleep via a peaceful sit-in. And then there’s the times when she’s so overly tired that she plays furiously with herself and maybe her stuffed toys and blankets.

I wonder if she has a secret nightlife?

“Nighthawks” by Thomas Duchniki via Flickr

Since we’ve closed out about 80% of light in her room, I wonder what her little internal clock is trying to tell us. However, although we need to roll with it, we can’t allow her to be in charge of her sleep schedule. That would lead to ruin for all of us. We need a schedule and so does she. And without a form of structure, she would just crash every time. And that is not healthy for the development of her little brain. Crashing ain’t good for me, and my brain is mostly developed.

Now, all I need to do is figure out how to manage her sleep patterns, then everything will be perfect.

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