Let Sleeping Toddlers Lie

Before I became a mommy I had all these visions in my head of how mommyhood would be.  My children would be helpful and pick up toys to the "Clean Up Song" from Barney.  They would behave swimmingly in restaurants and bedtime would be a sweet routine of bedtime stories and goodnight kisses.

Well, I get kisses and occasionally we get a story read, but beyond that bedtime goes nothing like what I envisioned for so many childless years.

First, I have yet to get my children to go into their rooms, lie in their beds and go to sleep.  I can't even get them to go lie in their bedrooms with me laying down with them.  I say, "Let's go get in your bed and snuggle."  The typical response to this is "Uh uh, in there."  There would be the living room.  Home of Mommy's Chair.  Where most falling asleep happens and the lift off point for 30 some pounds of toddler getting carried to their beds night after night.  

Or, occasionally, we have the "Let'em sleep where they drop" night.  After snuggling on the couch for awhile one wandered across the room 

while the other eventually pushed me off the couch with his feet and toppled over with exhaustion.

I still end up carrying them both to bed.  

At some point we all end up back in the living room anyway.  Even at 2 1/2 years old, sleeping through the night is the exception, not the rule.  And of course when they wander into our room looking for mama, they don't want to get in my bed or lay in their beds, we have to "Get up.  Go in there."

Hitting the bottle

When my twins boys were tiny and new I prayed that they would like their binkies.  I kept popping those little ones that came home with them from the hospital in their mouths and they kept popping them right back out.  I bought 25 different kinds of pacifiers thinking that if I could only find "THE ONE" they would take it and love it and me and the husband could maybe get some sleep.  

Then there were their bottles.  My tiny boys (5 lbs, 4 oz and 4 lbs, 13 oz to be exact) would barely take an ounce at a feeding.  I agonized over if they were getting enough.  And poor Thing 1 had God awful reflux; I became immune to the smell of spit up Aliementum.  I didn't care if there was a spot of spit up on my shirt because I could be guaranteed the next feeding would bring a lot more than a spot.  

But they grew.  And Thing 1's reflux magically went away around 9 months.  And they developed a love for their bottles that I have yet to break.  One day it went from me begging them to please take another ounce to wondering how a small human could drink an 8 oz bottle and then demand I "pill it up 'gain."  And then maybe a third fill up if bedtime is particularly challenging for him.  Because that 3rd "baba" is the charm.  

My boys are 2.5 yrs old.  Yep, 30 months if you prefer.  They still love their "babas."  I tried taking them away around a year, but gave up when I realized no one was ever going to sleep again.  I tried again around 18 months and that lasted part of one night until the hubs came out of the bedroom and said, "What the hell is going on out here?  Give him the damn bottle!"  Now at 2.5 we have daily discussions about how bottles are only for babies and not big boys to which my very verbal toddlers respond "goo ga ga."  

Don't judge me.  These kids have yet to sleep through the night consistently either so I use what ever works to get them to sleep.  And we've gotten it down to only at bedtime.  I keep telling them that when these last 6 nipples give out and spring leaks that there will be no more.  I'm trying to work up to it.  When I was confessing my shame to someone they kind of  put in perspective for me.  She asked,"Have you ever seen a kid go to kindergarten with a bottle?"  No,  I haven't and hopefully mine won't be the first.