Monday, October 20, 2008

sweet moments.....

this morning started out more than frustrating. but even these kinds of times do have moments worth reflecting on.

when big TJ is home the weekends are lazy and quiet. but the morning that he gets up early to go back to work proves more than irritating. every time.

it's the gosh darn alarm system. it beeps when you disarm it. and teege wakes up every time. it's usually done in the wee hours of morning. you know, at the butt crack of dawn. i have told TJ time and time again - we need to figure out a way to do this more quietly. teege is a sensitive sleeper. and each time tj tries to be quieter than the last and each time i think he's being louder.

it started at 5 15 this morning. we turn off the alarm alarm and the anticipated wails come over the monitor.
i gave teege a solid hour before going in. i just let him cry it out. i try my hardest not to go in and mess with him until it's 7 30 or later. thinking ahead -my goals for long term -what time do i want my toddler to get up down the road? 6 30? 8? so i try and make him wait it out til at least 7 30. some days it just doesn't work to my favor. some days he goes back to sleep after some good fussing - but today, not so much.

so i go in. quiet him down. lay him back down. go out.
cry cry cry.
this goes on for a good 30 minutes. walk in. walk out. drink of water. pat pat pat.change the diaper. rock rock rock. back in to the crib.
"it's not time to wake up baby."
at some point i'm thinking to myself, "i should just let him get up." but i had a very long busy sleepless weekend and i was drugged up on benadryl to boot. i wanted to go back to sleep.
so i take him back out of the crib and have a seat on the little couch in his room. he eventually settles down. snuggles up. chatters a little bit at the wall. the next thing i hear:
snoring.
sweet. solid. quiet. snoring.
i have trained my child in the ways of independent sleep. he always goes down awake and puts himself to sleep. when he wakes up in the night he is always given the chance to settle himself before i take over. so much so that for me he will never sit quietly and rock or snuggle until drowsy. he always rocks with his daddy, even so far as to be allowed to be rocked to sleep. but i have structured him so well to independent sleep that when i try and have a moment with him he looks at me with this look on his face that says "what are you doing woman? we don't do this! this is not normal!"

but this morning i relished in the moment. as irritated as i was for being roused at 5 15 this morning it was a sweet moment. one that we have not had since his new baby days.
i laid him back in his crib at 7 20. he didn't even stir.
and he slept til 9 30.
so all in all in a way, i got to sleep in.
i do need to learn some discipline when it comes to getting him up in the morning.
i am horrible about turning down the monitor and dozing til i'm good and ready to get up.
this needs some work.
maybe it will be my focus this week.

1 comment:

Cupcake Blonde said...

Maybe setting an alarm on a phone and having that phone on vibrate would be enough? Or have a clock radio and wak to music instead of a buzzer or loud shriek. I can't wake up to any piercing sound so these are the ways I use to wake up. May not work if TJ is a heavy sleeper but might be worth a try. You can always set your regualr alarm as a back up in case it does not work.