Ah the joys of motherhood.
It's currently 1:30a.m. and my eldest has been awake since 11p.m. which brings us to a grand total of 2.5 hours. Of course he would choose the couple of hours during which his younger brother is sleeping to stay awake. No point in both of them being awake at the same time.
Plus it's a lot more fun apparently to see me get frustrated at losing several hours of precious sleep. And then falling asleep just as his younger brother wakes up for his night bottle of milk. This ensures that mom ...meaning me...will lose the maximum hours of sleep possible.
I've been fighting this battle with my eldest for a while now. I'm not sure exactly what makes him stay awake at night. I've read in a couple of articles over stimulation will cause this. Others have said it's a phase or better yet it had something to do with naptime and not getting enough daytime sleep.
Which I can honestly say is not the case for my boy. He usually sleeps anywhere between 1-2 hours for naptime. Today he slept 2 hours. So he definitely got enough daytime sleep. And if this is just a phase that he's going through well it's been a particularly long one. This has been happening ever since the clocks changed in earlier this year.
What I'm thinking is that it has to do with the amount of screen time he gets. Today was a super duper rainy day. Which meant that we were stuck inside all day...we also had no car today. And he was extremely cranky and difficult to deal with. Then only thing that kept him from yelling and crying was letting him watch "mickey mouse clubhouse" on my phone.
Honestly it's not part of our parenting style to allow our children to watch cartoons. We did our research and we made our decision to limit any screen time they get as much as possible. But then you have days like today when they get bored and cranky ...and you just really cannot deal with another screaming fit from an angry toddler. So you let them watch to their hearts content.
And I'm thinking that the over stimulation came from that. Ahhh...which is so frustrating because this means I've basically ruined both our nights myself.
Since I've been awake for a while now I've managed to do some intense midnight thinking. This intense thinking has also lead me to a difficult decision. I'm going to be a strong mama in the face of my screaming toddlers crying fits and refuse to give in to his demands. No more cartoons for him.
This is not a punishment...don't get me wrong. This is an experiment to see if his sleeping will improve. Because I honestly cannot keep functioning on 2-3 hours of sleep every day . And neither can he.
I'm hoping and praying this will bring about full nights of sleep and rest for the both of us. I'm also praying for lots of strength to stick to my decision. I have a very stubborn child but what he doesn't realize is that mommy can be twice as stubborn.
So wish me luck!
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