Waiting it out.
Goddamn overalls in the dryer (Henry’s–I may not be glamorous but I draw the line at overalls). Their steady clang-clonk at every revolution must be what’s keeping the kid from napping. Or any number of things.
I’ve never had the stomach for crying at nap time. At night, we’ve managed to ignore the non-urgent sounding cries and calls out for “more nurse” and “three blankets, please!” and “my ‘chool bus? where my ‘chool bus go?” in the service of getting everyone sleep, a noble enough cause to quell my tendency to wonder, and resent my partner for not wondering, “but what if something is wroooooong?” But day time crying, yikes.
And yet, here I am. Writing this while Hank cries. Well, he’s not crying exactly. He’s just babbling and whining. But I feel crushing guilt if I’m not paying every ounce of my attention to him every single second of our awake time, something else I probably need to get over. But if he doesn’t take a nap today we are absolutely screwed. We have a family get together in a public eating setting at 5, and there is no chance we’ll all survive if the kid doesn’t get some rest already. He was already flipping out on our errands this morning, and at one point screeched “I WANTA NAP WITH IRON MAN!” which I took to mean he was a wee bit overtired. Also that he is partial to Iron Man.
But he’s going through a very inconvenient monkey-baby phase, where he wants to cling to me every moment. The thing is, Hank has never been a good cuddler. As an infant, he just didn’t like to hug or cuddle or be held affectionately, never resting on you, always stiff straight in your arms looking around (like, holding up his head and turning it around and around the very DAY HE WAS BORN). Now he loves to hug and kiss and hold hands. But when he is really starved for affection, he doesn’t want to hug you. He wants to be INSIDE YOU. He headbutts you with force, trying to get his head and yours to occupy the same space. He burrows underneath you in bed like a goddamned cat. He puts his giant head under your chin and tries to be one with your neck. Then, inevitably, he is distracted by something, and you see stars as he cracks his dome into your jaw and you bite your tongue near off.
He weighs over 30 pounds, so we’ve loved that he’s been happy to walk, holding both our hands, everywhere. Today was the first day he vetoed sitting in a cart at the store. And the past week there has been lots of “NO! MOMMY LIFT!” and “CARRY ME PLEASE!” when we ask him to walk.
My back is killing me. My jaw still hurts. My tongue is barely holding itself together.
But it would appear he’s finally settled down up there. And therein lies the wisdom of just closing the door on your toddler. You may agree or disagree; you may be more able than me to deal with the whining, or you may think it shockingly cruel to impose nap time. But it worked.
And we may, or may not, make it through this evening’s get-together.
*SOMETIMES*
*MORE OF THE TIMES*
Here is the thing. I get the calls for ‘dont let your itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny baby cry themselves to sleep’. I get it and I agree. I get the calls for not letting your older baby cry to sleep. To each their own. But toddlers are SMART. (babies are smart too, but you know…) And they need to sleep, but absolutely resist it, plus they know how to pull your heart strings and they know how to stall. I still get why some people feel totally uncomfortable with the idea of letting them cry. But I think they need sleep, consistency and boundaries more. So I let Audrey whine/babble/cry to sleep when needed. She doesn’t do it all that often, but when she does, I try my best to let her be without guilt. Cause kid needs her sleep.
Hang in there.
I can’t fathom how people get by if they DON’T let their kids cry it out every once in a while. With twins, it was never really an option to cuddle each one to sleep. We would have just been cuddling in shifts and no one would have ever gotten to sleep. Most of the time, our kids are great nappers and great through-the-night sleepers. If they cry hard for more than maybe five minutes, we’ll do a diaper check and tummy rub if the diaper’s clear.
We were at a retreat with a bunch of friends, some of whom are attachment-ish (mostly accidentally) parents, and they were kind of amazed that we could just sit there and listen to the twins wail (which was only happening because of the strange environment) after we put them down. In five minutes they were both fast asleep, which also amazed our friends. All their kids have sleep issues. Which is not to say ours won’t develop some later on. But for now, I don’t think we would be doing them any favors by disrupting their sleep schedules to “comfort” them. They’re very healthy, happy babies, and I think their sleep habits have a lot to do with that. (Oh, that’s practically the title of the Weissbluth book that is our sleep Bible.) That belief completely trumps any compulsion my wife or I have to rush into the nursery if there’s whining or crying.
The canines! Look at his canines!
We also get the headbutting, though with a much smaller child. It’s funny, that jump from 25 to 30 pounds sounds like it’s a doozy. We might get there by the time E is 3.
Well, we let our toddler cry, talk, etc. in her crib for an hour. She wouldn’t take her nap, even after we took her to a toddler soccer thing. I was ready to nap in the gym, but no, she was jumping up and down saying, “I wanna go yoga.”
Some people’s kids.
Oh, man, Jackson has started this whole clingy thing which is sweet and all, but I already have to carry his 30 lb self almost everywhere–he’s still not quite good enough with the walking to do that with any real regularity when we’re out–so to add in “all the time at home too”, well, I feel you on the back and neck.
“He headbutts you with force, trying to get his head and yours to occupy the same space…He puts his giant head under your chin and tries to be one with your neck.”
Wow. EXACTLY like my daughter from day 1 too. She’s never been a cuddler..
I let her cry in her crib to fall asleep for her nap today – 14 minutes of agony for me. She used to nurse to sleep for naps/night easily. Now at 14 months it no longer works. I experience the same acrobatics in my lap during extended 45 minute sucking sessions til there’s no milk, only pain. Night is also a disaster.
I wish she had words to communicate with me because I’m too tired to tell if she wants to bf held or is hungry or just exhausted but can’t get back to sleep on her own…
Yeow. I am *this* close to some sort of crying it out – I feel guilty nausea just typing that.