Sleep Patterns Impact Everything

The last two months have been tremendous when it comes to bed time around here. Both kids have been total champs about going down easy and staying asleep... Until last week when things started to unravel. Not fair to do to parents who have gotten used to a full night's sleep for a while.

W is now refusing to fall asleep unless one of us lays in bed with him and - if we don't - has a new habit of letting himself out of his room. B broke his normal habit of sleeping through the night with waking for a 3:00 am feeding and then it became a 20 minute cycle of feeding, putting down, crying, cuddling, putting down, crying, and on and on. (And Matt was out of town last weekend, which meant little to no sleep for mom and Nana had to come over to help with bedtime.)

I know kids have phases and sleep patterns that will change many times. But, once you get into a routine, you depend on it. Every detail impacts the next. For example, Matt couldn't take Howie for a walk this morning, because he opened the bathroom door after his shower and found W standing there with his blanket ready to start the day at 5:30, rather than his normal 6:00. Normally, I get into the shower at 5:30 and W wakes up as Matt gets home from his walk. But, I didn't get up on time, because I was a train wreck, having slept holding a baby off and on through the night.

That all translated into me pulling up to the train station as the gates went down and then my mom driving to a different station to catch the next train with Howie rolling around in the back of her car along with some hand weights and W constantly asking WHERE we were going, WHY we were going that way, and insisting he didn't like it. I ran for the train, caught it, but then was getting in the city five minutes later, which meant I didn't have time to stop for coffee. And now I'm still tired. See where I'm going with this?

Parenting is all about flexibility, rolling with the punches, and handling what life throws at you, but dammit, it's also about a schedule... If only the munchkins in this house would respect that.

Advice: Don't ever get too comfortable or reliant on a schedule, because you never know what next week will bring.