Since He's Not Going to Sleep

...it's a good thing he's too adorable for words.

A very good thing.

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Sleep Isn't For the Week

Apparently, that's what serves for a somewhat clever title today. The truth is I feel like I've had maybe seven hours of sleep in the past week. I'm sure it's really more than that, but perhaps not much more. I have no idea.

The nighttime tossing and turning, inability to get into a comfortable position, and then desperately needing to pee once I find a (semi)comfortable sleeping pose that I remember so well from my pregnancy with Westley has struck again. Four months earlier than last time!

Add to this the fact that Westley now fully rejects naps and all they stand for. When I tried to tempt him with some Mommy-Westley cuddle time this afternoon, he got in bed just long enough to head-butt me. Then the noises started: mostly "psst"-ing at me while I attempted to catnap. (I thought about locking him out of my bedroom, but I was pretty sure he would cry bitterly, or find something pointy upon which to impale himself.) An hour later, I've given up. On ever resting again.

The kicker is that when Westley stopped napping, he started having more trouble sleeping at night. It used to be that he'd toddle in and get in bed with Rob and me around 5:30 AM. This past week, it's been more like 2:00 AM. Or midnight. Or 11:30 PM.

Having the kid in our bed is an issue under normal circumstances. Sharing the covers with a tossy-turny, thrashy, likes-to-sleep-perpendicular-to-the-adults preschooler doesn't make for a restful night. Adding my out-of-whack pregnant body to this scenario makes real sleep seem impossible.

My solution to pregnancy sleep issues the first time around involved many nights alone on an air mattress. It was pretty sweet. I'd consider trying the air mattress experiment again if the thing still inflates the way it should and if I can find a place to set it up (the last time we used it was two homes and much square footage ago). Or I might just try camping out on the couch for the next 30 weeks.

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Nappily Never After

Today is Day 4 of a Westley Oliver "No Nap" streak...and I'm starting to think this might be It. The new Normal. As in, My kid no longer takes a daily nap.

I really want to complain about this. For one thing, I never realize how much I can get done while Westley sleeps until he doesn't. For another, I'm exhausted. I need a daily nap. And for the past few weeks, I've been taking full advantage of Westley's nap time by falling asleep right next to him.

But when I think about it, it's pretty clear that I totally lucked out on the nap front. Westley is well into his fourth year, and he's been a good napper more or less since day one. Three years (and a couple months) of regular nap times is awesome - and nothing to complain about.

Still, I need to figure out what to do about my own newfound napping needs. Today I tired to enforce the "you don't have to sleep, but you do have to be quiet" rule, and it completely failed. Westley thrashed around in bed next to me for a while, and then proceeded to cover me with stuffed animals. I'm fairly confident that I could get him to leave me alone if I put on a movie, but he watches more than enough TV as it is.

So if, over the next few weeks, I seem a little incoherent - or just plain absent - it's because I haven't yet perfected a technique for sleeping while your baby kid doesn't sleep.

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