Solving the Mysteries of Toddler Sleep: AKA I Can't Take it Anymore

Let this be a warning to parents who have sleep trained their children: It can all come to a screeching halt for no reason at all. And then your life will never be the same.

Let me explain. We worked very hard to have children who slept well. We read and followed the ridiculously titled and poorly written Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child bible. We arranged our schedule around their naps and bedtime and did everything we could to preserve these sacred times. The results were amazing: Naps daily for two to three hours and 12 to 13 hours of sleep each night, starting between 6:30 and 7:00. Life was good and we all were well rested. Until it aaaaaaaallllll stopped.

I am not sure what changed or why now. Perhaps a combination of many factors. I guess it somewhat coincides with our new schedule of heading up to Massachusetts on the weekends, as well as with taking them out of their cribs and putting them into their toddler beds (we had no choice: They were climbing out of their cribs and I even caught Avery once in a Matrix-like position, precariously balanced on the side of the crib). And since it is winter and we are cooped up inside, there are less play dates and running around and energy spent on playgrounds.

Free-range children is the horror I imagined: Two kids running around their room at night, alternating between giggling fits and crying over pulled hair. Sometimes for two hours, before going to bed. Last night, they were in bed by seven, and they stayed up until after 9:00.

And the naps? Completely not into them any more. I put them in their room anyway, for quiet time, and can keep them their for about two hours. But it is not the same. And I know they need that nap. But they are too excited to explore twin conversations (they have adorable talks together) and collaborative play (which is all good, except when it involves a crayon). Sometimes if I lay on the floor in front of their bed and model sleeping for them, they will sleep. But I can’t take naps every day with them (or can I? Hmmm…) and it doesn’t always work anyway. And bedtime, which once involved reading one book and tucking into bed, and kissing tiny foreheads, thus freeing me up for important activities such as watching Survivor or surfing the internet, now involves 46 trips into their room, finger-pointing way too much and admonishing them to lie down, stop talking and go to sleeeeeeeeeeep.

So I feel like I never get a break. Well, that is not entirely true: The alarm goes off at 4:00 for me, and I go to the gym at five (I’ve managed to log almost 150 stress-reducing miles on the treadmill), thus ensuring that I get a little break time each day. But once I get home, the girls wake up shortly and it is go-go-go all day, with no nap to look forward to and no cut-off time to anticipate. And nap times were such a break for me. I would call friends and prepare dinner and clean, uninterrupted. Sometimes I could read for pleasure, if I were feeling entitled. Or I could just decompress. Not anymore.

Does this change? If anyone can offer hope/advice, I’d appreciate it. Because I don’t understand how something that was going so right could suddenly go so wrong.

So it has come to orchestrating breaks. On a bright note, the girls are officially signed up for their first drop-off class. Twice a week for two hours each time for a grand total of eight weeks, they will be attending a gentle-separation toddler class down in Union Square. Oh, how I am looking forward to this. And dreading it. The dread part: I have never, ever left my children in a situation like this. To fend for themselves in the dog-eat-dog world of toddlerhood, with a bunch of adults I don’t know who are paid to decide who got the toy first. And don’t even get my started on all of my collection of unlikely but nonetheless scary hell scenarios, like what if there were another 9.11 event? It will break my heart to walk out that door. But when I DO walk out that door, I am smack dab in the middle of Union Square, with so many wonderful attractions, like Whole Foods and Barnes & Nobel and amazing coffee shops and Babies r Us and Trader Joe’s and the Farmer’s Market and Fishes Eddy and Union Square Park and, if I feel like taking a stroll literally down memory lane, my old NYU stomping grounds down University Place to Washington Square. I will have two hours, twice a week of strolling sans stroller. Of food shopping without destructive little shelf-clearers. Of negotiating my way through the world on my own. Maybe I will get a hackey sack and stand around in a hackey circle. (ok, that is a joke, but the point is, if I wanted to I could, if only for a couple hours). For all of March and April. March, with its ugly weather and occasional snow storm. And April, with it’s spring-is-in-the-air feel. I am so excited. And yes, a little nervous. But we need this: Me and the girls.

I am also pursuing full-force my theory that having things on the calendar makes life a little more enjoyable. So I have been adding new and exciting plans to these upcoming months. More on all that next time. It is 1:23 in the morning and I can’t sleep but I think I better try.

Pictured above, a sledding/snowboarding afternoon. Nicole and I and the girls went sledding with my brother’s family. My dad is visiting from China. It was so much fun. Avery loved sledding down the hill and Madeline enjoyed making snow castles. And it was nice to do something with our families: We usually just hang out at each other’s houses, which is fine. But it was so great to create new memories. Avery loved the snowboarding and when I asked her last night in bed what she wanted to do tomorrow she told be “Snowboarding.”

And, by the way, both girls fell asleep in the car within two minutes on our half-hour drive home. Because THEY STILL NEED THEIR NAPS, dammit.