Sleep, again

Who knows what started it - perhaps our recent trip, or being sick for a week - but poor Mateo seems to have entered a rough patch again. Not knowing much about kids before we had them ourselves, one thing I definitely did not know was how much they cycle through delightful and difficult phases. I've seen this happen with our friends' kids, too, so I know it's not just us! Of course, it's not like it's all one or the other. Any day is filled with good and not-so-good moments. But, as Mateo approaches the rumored-to-be-difficult age of three-and-a-half, things have taken a turn for the, well, behaviorally challenged.

Since we got home from our trip, sleep has been on shaky ground. He's been waking up at 5 am raring to go, begging for a nap by naptime, begging for bedtime by bedtime, but not able to stay asleep long enough to get the rest he needs. I'm sure that accounts for much of the up and down behavior he's been experimenting with, too, but that knowledge doesn't help much in the moment!

Earlier, after a wonderful morning of going to the park, playing inside, and having a picnic lunch on our deck, naptime rolled around and he turned into Tantrum Man: screaming at the top of his lungs, running through his sister's room, refusing to use the potty, and so on, before finally calming down and falling asleep next to me before I even finished reading to him. I think he is really overtired, but it's hard enough to get him to sleep his regular amount of hours, much less try to catch up. Last night, to add insult to injury, he was up wailing in the middle of the night and not wanting to go back to sleep or be left alone in his room. Let's cross our fingers that this isn't the start of a new pattern, because one time is sometimes all it takes to change his idea of normal!

I know this will pass soon enough and we'll hit a delightful phase again. It's just kind of a bummer to go from things being great to everything being an excuse to test Mama and Mommy as much as possible. And, I have to admit that after nearly three and a half years, I'm tired of sleep being shaky ground still. I'm glad that we're at the point he sleeps pretty well when everything is going normally, but throw in even a little bit of change and everything gets knocked off kilter quickly. I look forward to the day when he (and we!) can go to bed at night easily and wake up in the morning at a reasonable hour with no returns to consciousness in the middle!