Last night Matt and I were lucky enough to go out and stay out past midnight. Candy stayed at our place to watch William, expected he would be asleep when we returned, but he was not. We slept in and Candy told us she’d hardly had any sleep as William stayed up the whole time except for a brief hour sleep.
When he’s restless sometimes I go in and try to sit with him till he’s asleep. I figured he’d go down pretty easy, but it wasn’t to be. Instead he kept his eyes open fighting with all his might. From studying his own hand saying wow (I love how his own hands fascinate him so) to just pouting, it was a battle of wills for him.
Other times I’ve encouraged him to lie down, and just covered him and patted him to sleep. He kept his eyes wide open instead.
At one point, I thought he was ready to stay down. I put the blanket over him and was ready to leave the room. However, he just turned over, started sucking his thumb and looked at me to let me know he wasn’t done fighting yet.
After he kept awake and actively screaming and crying, I finally gave up to let him play for about an hour to try to tire him out. When he started rubbing his eyes, I decided to try again.
This time he went down relatively easy and stayed down, eventually having a nap over several hours.
When I was a teen I wondered once if the way you spent your first day or so of the new year would set the tone for the year ahead. In this case, I’m truly hoping not, as it’s better for all of us that William gets a good night sleep and naps. While some kids his age go down to one nap a day, he seems to do better with two.
Today he’s been pretty fussy, which isn’t really like him. So Matt and I are hoping he will get a good night’s sleep tomorrow, and hopefully things will be back to normal soon.
~ Danielle
Over 40 First Time Mom 