Jean was terrible from day one. Fighting and fighting every single nap and bedtime. She cried every night for 45 minutes or more for the first two years of her life. Whether or not anyone was in the room trying to comfort her. Then she started waking up in the night All. The. Time. Which meant, I was up All. The. Time. (And listen, don't tell anyone, but I've been known to slip a tiny amount of over-the-counter sleeping stuff into her milk at night when we have stayed at hotels or someone else's house. Don't judge. After multiple nights of 2 hours of sleep because your daughter just can't function with the excitement of her new surroundings, you'd do the same.) Then, she began having night terrors. If you don't know what those are, good! I hope you never do. I'm not sure who was more frightened, me or her? And sleeping in the car? Forget it! What a total joke. She has now grown out of most everything, except the whole waking up early nonsense. At least it isn't 5 am anymore. Now she can usually sleep all the way to 6:30!
Alex, once again, is totally opposite. If he's tired, he will sleep. Anywhere (except in our bed. Both of the kids think it's play time if they are snuggled in bed with us). However, we found his weakness:
Sharing a room.
How do you parents do it?? How do you get your kids to sleep in the same room? I shared a room as a kid. So did Bryan. Neither of us remember having issues. But Alex just can't handle it.
A few nights ago, I had this brilliant idea of putting Jeanie's bed into Alex's room for a night, just to try it. We thought it might be fun for the kids, and also might be good practice for when we go to G/ma's house (where they need to share a room). Bad idea. The boy just cried. And screamed. And yelled. At one point about 15 minutes into this, Jean came out rubbing her eyes and said, "I think Alex is crying." Which was funny, and I felt bad for laughing, but we told her to let him cry for for a little longer until he fell asleep. She was fine with this, but after another half an hour or so, I felt so bad for the poor girl, that we moved her bed back into her room so she could get some sleep. Within 2 minutes of her bed leaving the room, Alex went to sleep.
So does anyone else have children with troubles like this? Or are mine just sleep handicapped? I mean, I know they are; there's no reasonable explanation I can come up with. But I assume I'm not the only parent doomed to no sleep for the next couple of decades, right??
