Edgar Allan Poe wasn’t the most cheerful soul was he? The post title is a quote from his good self and whilst the meaning may be slightly different, we’re beginning to dread night time in our house because of little Ned’s new nighttime regime.
Ned, not two until New Years Day, has stopped napping during the day almost entirely. After a brief but abortive attempt to put him into a proper bed, he’s back in his cot (for bedtime at least) but the bed is still in his room. We now have an excess of bed, and there is in fact nowhere else to put it. Ned goes down to sleep at some point between 7pm and 7.30pm and settles really well. He then sleeps a good 5 hours until sometime around 2am. Unfortunately the gentle crying and fuss making that used to characterise his nocturnal wake ups and could usually be settled via the application of 5 ounces of milk, have transformed beyond all recognition. Now we have a top of the lungs caterwauling scream that threatens to wake the dead, not least Fifi and the Boy, and there is only one way to stop it: Enter his room, remove small screaming boy from cot, place small screaming boy in bed, climb into bed with now quiet boy, remain there for 5 hours being poked, scratched, hit and talked at.
It’s exhausting and wifey probably does a good 80-90% of it but it’s not sustainable. This morning when I went in, the little sod had even thrown both his teddies onto the bed in preparation for his nightly migration. Complying to International Standards on Toddler Orientation, Ned manages to take up slightly over half a single bed by lying at a 45 degree angle. If you lie with your back to him you get increasingly enthusiastic taps on the head until you turn around, at which point you’re then vulnerable to the random thwacks in the face from flailing arms. I have a scratch on my sodding eyelid as testament to this at the moment.
It’s that age old issue of knowing what we should do to train him out of it, balanced against the fact that doing so will probably exhaust the other two children who will undoubtedly be woken up by him. Maybe half term next week is a good point to start…