Ah, sleep. One of the behaviors that some parents fool themselves into thinking they have any say in the matter. It took a very long time for me to realize the little dude sleeps when he sleeps and we just have to ride it out.
You can make small adjustments, create a good sleep environment, and try to hold to a schedule, but don’t get bummed out when things go sideways. Today is an example of sideways sleeping. Max spent the day with his mom while I worked on my NaNoWriMo project (which is going great, thanks for asking. check it out yourself by clicking the link over on the right). She’s currently out at a social function/ volunteer event, and I was in charge of post-dinner entertainment and bedtime. Well, bedtime was pretty easy. Easy because he passed out in my arms an hour and a half before bedtime was supposed to start. That’s the consequence of a long fun day with no nap,I guess. So now I’m hoping we get a lucky break and he sleeps until his regular time of 6AM, but I have a bad feeling that he’ll be up and ready to start his day in the dark, dark night. It could be a long day for mom and me.
At first, I felt guilty that he fell asleep so early on my watch. But honestly, what was I going to do? I could have engaged in a long and unpleasant keep awake campaign, but do I really want to make my sleepy dude miserable for the sake of routine? And I’ve had limited success keeping him awake anyway, so getting worked up over it was pretty pointless. So let’s roll the dice and see what we end up with tomorrow.
Chris Loblaw, Author 