Gavin is 22 months old and lately, he’s been giving me quite a bit of grief when it comes to going to sleep - whether it’s his afternoon nap or bedtime.  The last time he was this difficult with sleep was when he was dropping from two naps a day to one nap.

According to Baby Center and most other books I’ve consulted, the average two year old needs anywhere between 11.5 - 15.5 hours of sleep a day (naps plus overnight sleep).  My target has been to get Gavin to sleep at least 11.5 hours a day (nap plus overnight sleep) because of the evidence showing the negative effects of insufficient sleep on brain development, growth and other physiological effects.  Additionally, a cranky, overtired baby is also very difficult to manage. 

Gavin normally sleeps 10 hours a night plus a two hour nap during the day, although this varies from day to day.  I usually find that if I want him to settle down for his afternoon nap, then taking him out for some vigorous play in the playground or a run around a shopping mall can do wonders to wear him out.  By the time he gets back into the car, he’s ready to knock out on the way home.

Recently, however, I’ve noticed that Gavin has been pushing past his usual limits.  Ordinarily, he’s ready to nap by four to five hours after waking up in the morning.  Between waking up from his nap and going to bed at night, he usually only lasts about six hours, and at the maximum seven hours.  Lately, he’s been pushing six hours between waking up in the morning to afternoon nap and sometimes even longer.  Between his afternoon nap and sleeping for the night, he’s been consistently pushing seven hours.

Even taking him out during the day doesn’t do much for wearing him out.  No matter how tired he looks at the shopping mall or the park, he no longer falls asleep in the carseat on the way home.  When we get home, he can be running around for another hour or two before settling down for his afternoon nap.  If I really want him to sleep earlier, I have to carry and rock him to sleep (usually to his protests if he isn’t ready to sleep).  Although I don’t usually mind the rocking, sometimes, I can’t help wondering as Isil does of her own child - when will Gavin be able to fall asleep without needing to be rocked or to be on the breast?  Even now, sometimes he doesn’t even fall asleep on the breast any more, unless he’s really tired or if I’ve already wound him down considerably by carrying him around the room first.

All of these signs are typical of the time when he dropped his morning nap so I wondered if he might be ready to drop his afternoon nap, too.  Barely even two, I felt it seemed a bit early for it so I checked up on the average age that toddlers stop napping.  According to Baby Center, some toddlers stop by the age of three, while other push on until five or six.  When I check a couple of forums (MedHelp and Momsview), I found that there were Mums whose toddlers had stopped napping altogether by two and some even before that.

There is a wide variation and the important thing to remember is that every toddler is different.  Baby Center also states that some toddlers may skip their afternoon naps if they are already getting sufficient sleep overnight - e.g. 12 or more hours.  In such cases, the afternoon nap is no longer so critical.  Children who sleep less than 12 hours a night are the ones who need to continue their afternoon naps.  However, Baby Center also recommends giving children under the age of 4 some quiet time during the day if they refuse to sleep.

So far, I’ve allowed Gavin to skip his afternoon nap twice.  In the first instance, he had slept more than 12 hours overnight so I felt he had slept sufficiently.  He went to bed much, much earlier than normal (7:30pm as opposed to 10:30pm-12am as he normally does).  The night went well and he slept 14 hours that night. 

Today, when Gavin was resisting his afternoon nap again, I allowed him to stay up and tried to put him to bed earlier.  He fell asleep quite easily but awoke about two hours later crying.  I presumed he was having a night terror which suggests he hadn’t had enough sleep from the previous night.  Although he did go back to sleep and has been sleeping pretty well since.  Admitedly, he probably only got about 10 hours of sleep the night before which might explain the night terrors.

I guess from here on forwards I’m just going to have to work on a day to day basis, playing by ear to see how he goes.  At least now I know that there exists the possibility that his difficulties in falling asleep may be due to him attempting to give up his afternoon naps altogether.  The fact that he dropped his morning naps fairly early on is also a good indication that this could very well be the case.  As long as he’s catching enough hours overnight, I’ve decided not to stress about it.

The only other downside to losing the afternoon nap is that I no longer get a chance to sneak off and do my own thing during the day.  If only he were like my god-daughter - three years old and still sleeping solidly during the day, any time and any place.

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Dang!  You mean my parents have been right all along?

Although I have always felt that it was vital that my 22 month old toddler receive at least the minimum numer of hours of sleep everyday, I have never thought it would still be as important that older children - even teenagers - clock in a minimum number of hours of sleep a day.  After all the times my parents used to nag me for staying up late to read books or play computer games when I was growing up, it turns out they were right to nag after all.

My BFF referred me to an article which reports the findings from sleep studies about the impact of losing as little of one hour a day on the cognitive development of children and teenagers. 

“Because children’s brains are a work-in-progress until the age of 21, and because much of that work is done while a child is asleep, this lost hour appears to have an exponential impact on children that it simply doesn’t have on adults…

…a slightly sleepy sixth-grader will perform in class like a mere fourth-grader. “A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development,” Sadeh explains.”

Looks like I’m going to have to work harder to enforce the bedtime rule with Gavin.

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People often wonder why I get so anal about making sure Gavin gets enough sleep.  Well, this is why…

When Gavin was a lot younger, my cousin told me about the daughter of some friends of hers who were pretty much party-goers.  They were out at all hours and so was their daughter.  She never seemed to mind and she obviously adapted well to it.  At the time, it was put down to “training”.  Now I suspect they are just lucky to have a daughter with an easy-going nature.

At twenty months, I remember reading somewhere that Gavin should get somewhere between 11.5-13.5 hours of sleep a day (that’s over night plus naptime).  Well, I’ve seen the consequences of what happens when Gavin doesn’t get his minimum sleep requirements of at least 11.5hours and it is not pleasant.

Gavin typically sleeps about 10 hours overnight, although there have been times when he’s been known to do more.  With 10 hours of sleep a night, that usually means I need to ensure he goes down for at least 1.5hrs during his daytime nap.  At this age he rarely, if ever, has more than one nap a day no matter how short it is.  He also sleeps longer and better when we’re home so I never risk trying to get him to sleep while we’re out unless he’s slept about 11-12hours overnight.

The last three times Gavin fell short of his required 11.5hours, this is what happened:

Towards the time when he starts to get tired, he starts to go a little crazy.  He’s giggling and laughing and behaving like he’s high on something.  He’s difficult to put down to sleep and it is very difficult to get his cooperation with anything - eating dinner, taking a bath, getting out of the shower, getting dress, wearing a diaper, etc. Despite being tired, he’ll resist all attempts to help him sleep and when he finally does fall asleep, it is usually only for about 45 minutes to an hour before he wakes up screaming and howling from a night terror.

Trying to settle him down is next to impossible and after a long bout of crying, he might settled down if you turn on the TV for him to watch - just make sure it’s the right program.  After that, he’s fully awake and not ready to sleep for at least another three to four hours.

After experiencing this pattern of events, I figured that Gavin is just one of those children whom you just can’t mess around with when it comes to sleep.  He’s also a child that needs to be encouraged to sleep rather than allowing him to decide when he’s tired.

Meltdowns aside, there is an even more important reason why you should encourage your child to get the recommended hours of sleep a day.  One of the most important parts of sleep is called the REM phase - rapid-eye-movement or dream phase.  During this phase, children are busy sorting out the things they have observed and learned during the day.  It is an important part of their brain development and a lack of REM sleep can affect brain development.  It is no surprise, therefore, that infants can spend up to 50% of their sleep in REM sleep, versus adults who only spend 20% of their time in REM sleep.

Just as adults who suffer sleep deprivation function at sub-optimal levels during the day, children who suffer from sleep deprivation can become more aggressive, non-compliant, and suffer more medical problems.  So even if it means I have to carry him around, rock him to sleep, or nurse him for an extended period, by hook or by crook, I’ll get him to sleep…

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A couple of nights ago, we had another one of those “difficult nights”.  An over-tired and super cranky Gavin launched into a very long and very loud crying fit that had the whole house on edge.

The Background

Gavin has a tendency to wake up in the morning before receiving his full 10-12 hours of sleep a night.  Usually to help him clock in the hours, I will keep him upstairs and let him play a little while before trying to nurse or rock him back to sleep. 

One evening, the hubby suggested I take him downstairs instead of letting him go back to sleep.  I immediately debunked his suggestion and told him that if I took Gavin downstairs, he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep until his nap time and he would forever be playing “catch up” on his sleep.  Since sleep is a child’s time for putting in order the things he has learned during the day, I felt it extremely important that Gavin gets adequate quantities of sleep regardless of how we managed it.  At this age, adequate is 10-12 hours of sleep a night, plus at least one 2-3 hours nap in the afternoon.

What Happened

One morning Gavin woke up at 7am (after falling asleep at about 11pm the night before).  By 8am, he still hadn’t gone back to sleep.  Feeling bad for thrashing the hubby’s suggestion some evenings previously, I decided to try what he suggested and bring him downstairs to play for a bit (hoping I could help him make up for the lack of sleep during his day time nap).

Gavin played for a while and went up for another nap at 11am.  He woke up at 12:30pm.  My SIL2 and I took him shopping.  I hoped the shopping excursion would wear him out sufficiently to take a second nap later in the afternoon (given that Gavin hasn’t had two naps in the day in quite a long while and sometimes pushes 6 hours plus between nap and bedtime).

When we got home, he refused to sleep (it was about 4pm).  Rocking and nursing failed to get him off to bed.  It was 5:30pm when I decided to give up and let him have an early night.  When he went back downstairs, he was running around like a mad boy, squealing with delight and joy as he played with our maid and my SIL2.  Everything seemed to be going well.

By dinner time, he was clearly getting tired.  Hubby took him up to bathe - he wailed all the way through.  By the time hubby passed Gavin to me to nurse to sleep, Gavin’s eyes were almost shut.  He fell asleep in record time and all was well (it was about 7:30pm).

8:15pm, Gavin woke up crying.  The crying escalated to inconsolable screaming wails.  I offered my breast, he rejected it.  I carried him around the room, rocking and patting him but he wouldn’t calm down.  After a while, I could make out a hiccoughing request for “milk”, so I offered him my breast.  I soon realised that he couldn’t drink because his nose was blocked and that made him even more upset.  He launched into a fresh bout of screeching wails while I tried to rock him and soothe him.

At about this point, the hubby said in a rather calm voice, “You should manage his day better.”

With Gavin’s wailing in the background, I wasn’t sure I heard him right.  “What?”  I asked.

He repeated himself.

I couldn’t believe it.

Note to all the Dads out there reading this blog post (or Mums, if Dad is the stay-home parent):

1. Please don’t insult us mothers by stating the obvious.  The fact that Gavin’s misery was brought upon by a lack of sleep was clearly evident.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out. 

2. If you must insist on making such comments, please find a more appropriate time to do so. When the baby is wailing at the top of his voice is NOT and appropriate time.

The Solution

We took Gavin downstairs, turned on Playhouse Disney and let him watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  He was a lot better after that.  His nose had also cleared up, so that by the time we took him back upstairs, he was able to nurse again.

The Conclusion

Unfortunately for me, after nursing, he stayed up until 11:30pm, albeit in a much improved disposition.

While some toddlers manage to thrive regardless of the amount of sleep they get, Gavin, evidently, is not one of those toddlers.  Needless to say, I will not be bringing him downstairs until he has clocked an adequate amount of sleep for a “night” as this experience has merely served to reinforce the fact that there is no such thing as “catch up” sleep during nap time - at least, not where Gavin is concerned.

The other thing I’ve learned is that when it comes to mothering a child - mother does indeed know best.  So Mums - trust your own instincts, even if it goes against what everyone else tells you.  You are the one who spends the most time with your child - it naturally stands to reason that you will know your child best.

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It is beginning to dawn upon me that my son is not turning out to be the text-book baby that I thought he was.  When he was quite young, I found a personality test in Tracey Hogg’s “Secrets of the Baby Whisperer” and tried it out on Gavin.  At that time, my answers showed he was a “text-book” baby.  Now, I am beginning to suspect he is anything BUT a text-book baby.

No matter how many winding-down-before-sleep routines I try to establish with Gavin, none of them seem to work for very long.  After a while, when Gavin associates the routine with sleep, he begins to resent it and starts putting up a fight the moment he senses he is being put to bed.

These are the things he no longer allows me to do because he associates them with sleep:

• Can’t turn off the lights in the bedroom
• Can’t play slow, sleepy music
• Can’t put him into the carrier or sling
• Can’t rock him in certain positions or do certain “sleep-inducing” movements

The hubby and I have even tried pretending to sleep while Gavin “read” his books or played on the bed beside us.  The unfortunate thing about that is that Gavin has developed a penchant for WWF - he stands up on the bed and then throws himself on either Daddy or me.  The good news is that he doesn’t usually hurt himself when he does that.  The bad news is that he usually hurts Mummy and Daddy in the process.  Every time we see him get up, we cringe and brace ourselves for pain.

When he isn’t playing WWF, he’s busy dropping books on our heads, climbing over us and using our heads as stepping stones, or pulling my hair.  Suffice to say, it isn’t at all pleasant to have him “play by himself” while we sleep - if we can even sleep with half the things he does to us. 

Honestly, I’m running out of ways to help get him to sleep and he obviously isn’t any closer to getting to sleep on his own.  He continues to play and run around the room until he’s so tired, he starts bumping into things and falling down in a sleepy-stupor, but yet he doesn’t want to sleep nor does he fall asleep.  I have to hand it to this boy - his staying up power is rather impressive.

My MIL hasn’t been able to offer much advice because my hubby and SILs slept easily.  It looks like Gavin’s picked up another “undesirable” trait from my side of the family.  My mother recounted the times my brother would scream and cry until he fell asleep from physical exhaustion.  Well, I’ve already made that choice - I’m not going to let Gavin cry himself to sleep as long as I can do something about it.  Besides, I haven’t the heart to do it anyway.

Last week, we were out shopping at Carrefour and I saw another baby girl who looked like she might be around Gavin’s age.  She was sitting in the shopping trolley howling her head off until her body was twisted so that her head was pressed against the bars of the shopping trolley.  Her mother continued pushing the trolley, paying no regard to her daughter’s wails.  Her cries were so heartbreaking, I almost picked her up to pacify her myself.

I digress…  I guess I’ve finally come to accept the fact that I have a “high need” baby who has turned into a “high need” toddler.

My only concern now about Gavin being a “high need” toddler is that he is starting to attract a lot of “undesirable” labels - negative labels that I feel will only serve to make him more negative and harder to manage.  Although most of these labels are mentioned with humour, there’s always that underlying truth to a statement no matter how you try to twist it.

Without being unrealistic, I want to focus on Gavin’s positive points and let him know I appreciate all the good things about him before his negatives become the center of attraction.  So starting from today, I’m going to relabel him.

For instance, he isn’t a difficult toddler, he’s a high need toddler.  He isn’t naughty, he’s curious, he’s adventurous, and he’s inquisitive.

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A couple of nights ago, the hubby and I endured one of the worst nights in Gavin’s sleep history.  I would have written about it earlier, but I was testing out a hypothesis.

Although Gavin usually wake up at night (he stirs and fusses a little but he’s easily pacified with the breast or just patting him back to sleep), there is the odd occasion when he’ll decide he doesn’t want to go back to sleep.  Usually, that will last for about an hour - tops! - where he’ll either entertain himself (if we’re lucky) or he’ll slap, prod and squeal until Mummy or Daddy pays attention to him.  After that, he’ll nurse back to sleep fairly easily.

A few nights back, he woke up after a terrible nightmare - which I suspect was a night terror - and stubbornly refused to go back to sleep after that no matter how much I rocked him, gave him the breast, or let him play until he was really tired.  Every time I thought he was looking tired, I would rock him and nurse him and then try to put him back into bed but the moment I laid him down, he would bounce out of bed again.  It probably would have been okay if he was content to stay awake, but the fact remained that he was dead tired and extremely cranky because of it.

So there I had a cranky baby who was howling and crying, who refused to be pacified or laid down to sleep, and this went on for about three hours.  Hubby gave up somewhere in the middle and went downstairs to sleep so he could get to work the next morning.  I, unfortunately, had to endure the wails that were starting to tear my nerves after the third time I rocked him and nursed him to no avail.  No wonder they say that a mother’s love is unconditional.

The next morning, my mind kept going around and around in circles trying to figure out what went wrong.  I went back to the events of the previous day and could only conclude that it had been too big a day for Gavin - too many activities and not enough nap time.  My MIL, however, thought it was the new toy they had bought him from Carrefour, which you can see if you play the Youtube video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-0_6ftGos8

On Saturday morning, after Gavin woke up, my MIL suggested we take him swimming at her club.  By the time we were ready to go, Gavin was looking a wee-bit tired, but I figured the excitement of being in the pool could forestall his need to nap until the afternoon.  I guess he must have been quite tired because he clung to me a lot in the water and didn’t protest when it was time to go. 

Despite how limp he was when I carried him to the car, he didn’t fall asleep on the way home.  Neither did he fall asleep when I took him upstairs to knock him out.  In fact, it took me nearly two hours to get him to go down for a nap - by which time, I was dead tired (hey, it’s quite a workout carrying a baby and wading through water, okay?) so I fell asleep with him.  We got up after two hours and headed to Jusco to pick up a few things.  Then we had dinner at Pizza Hut since the hubby had some vouchers to use up.

After dinner, we dropped by Carrefour for some groceries and while the hubby was at the checkout, we saw the toy at one of those stalls along the walkway.  Since Gavin was so enthralled by the demo unit, my MIL bought one for him.  I had seen a similar toy once before at a friend’s house and it seemed to keep the kids quite entertained.  All the way home in the car, Gavin was playing with the toy.

When we got home, we gave him a bath and let him settle down to bed.  Gavin fell asleep relatively easily which was not surprising considering how tired he must be.  A few hours later, he started howling in his sleep and didn’t stop until I managed to wake him up.  I played some music for him and then tried to settle him down again and that’s when our little night adventure began.

To test my MIL’s hypothesis, I kept the toy away from him the whole of Sunday.  Sunday night, he slept quite well.  On Monday, my SIL and I let him play with the toy briefly in the afternoon (where I recorded the short clip above) and then we put it away.  Monday night, he had two nightmares again, although it wasn’t as bad as the one on Saturday night.  Tuesday, we kept the toy away and Tuesday night also went by quite peacefully. 

So was it the toy?

I think it definitely played a part in causing the nightmare.  Although I think the big day out and lack of sleep probably didn’t help.  The fact that he was playing with the toy just before bedtime was also a big mistake on our part. 

To be safe, I guess we should put the toy away until Gavin’s a little older.

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Some nights, I just have to ask…

“Why me?”

I know this self-indulgence is rather pointless and purposeless, but it does create the tiniest bit of respite after an endless night.

Yes, I’ll write about the experience.  Just not today. 

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There’s a stomach flu bug going around and it struck me again, although I think I had a milder reaction to it this time.  Although I felt really crook, I didn’t have any fever (despite the fact that the doctor registered a mild elevation in body temperature).  I had a headache and muscular aches all over again - symptomatic of viral infections, meaning no antibiotics required, and I felt general malaise (that-out-of-sorts feeling you get when you’re getting ill) and fatigue.  I had stomach upset and a lack of appetite, an increased need to defecate, although no diarrhoea, and I was nauseous.

As usual, I was reluctant to go to the doctor because I knew what was wrong, what diagnosis the doctor would pronounce and what treatment he would recommend.  My MIL was concerned, so I agreed in the end to go.  Also because hubby and MIL have been wondering if I’m pregnant since my symptoms seem so mild so I wanted to get that score settled once and for all. It took me nearly an hour to see the doctor - this is exactly why I don’t like to see doctors when it feels so unnecessary.  I already feel crummy, all I want to do is sleep and I have to sit in a waiting room with sick people to see a doctor who’s going to tell me what I already know.

Well, I know better next time.  My poor MIL was forced to entertain Gavin for that entire hour while I waited so it can’t have been much fun for her either.

The doctor’s diagnosis? A viral infection originating from the stomach - apparently seems there’s a lot of this going around lately.  No kidding.  I just had it about two or three weeks ago.  He did ask about my period but since I only had it about a couple of weeks ago, he immediately ruled out a possible pregnancy.  It’s definitely way too early for any pregnancy symptoms to show.

The treatment? Stay away from oily and spicy foods.  Milk is still okay, unless I start getting diarrhoea.  100Plus or Excel will be good for the nausea (something I usually drink when I’m dehydrated, feeling nauseous or when I’ve had diarrhoea because it replaces lost electrolytes and because my body seems to naturally crave for it).  Paracetamol for the fever and aches, some anti-nausea pills and anti-diarrhoea pills (which I think were of a similar nature to lomotil).

Well, I could have told myself that…

Anyway, the thing that I’ve been wondering is whether Gavin’s been having the bug, too, and feeling crabby because of it?  It might also explain his two episodes of vomiting recently.  Although I know that crying hard can cause babies to throw up but I always thought that was only with really young babies - don’t quote me on this, I haven’t researched it. 

While it is still possible that he threw up because he was upset, I did notice that on the first night he was nursing quietly for a while and then suddenly, it was as if something upset him and he sat bolt upright and starting howling until he threw up (despite all my best efforts to pacify him).

Regardless, I have found a way around the night-time crying before bedtime (or at least minimising it).  I’ve discovered it isn’t so much to do with whether he had one nap or two naps during the day (although, clearly, having that morning nap does improve his disposition somewhat).  It’s got to do with how I put him to sleep.

Sometime back when I had the first episode of the stomach flu, I was so achy, I just couldn’t bear the thought of rocking him and carrying him up and down the room for half an hour to an hour.  Praying that Gavin would be kind to a sick Mummy, I just popped him on my breast and lay down beside him to sleep.  Although I had to go through a routine of switching breasts everytime he came off before he had fallen asleep, I found it infinitely better than having to rock him.  The great thing was that Gavin eventually fell asleep (and so did I).

It worked so well, that even after I got better, I decided to continue this method of putting Gavin to bed.  And it continued to work, at least, up until the day he threw up.  After he threw up the second night, I decided to switch his naptime routine back to its original timing - morning nap when he started to get tired, and an afternoon nap if I could get him to sleep.  That night, I started his bedtime routine by nursing him.  It seemed like he was almost about to fall asleep, then suddenly, as if someone pressed a magic button, he was up and about and ready to explore again. 

Without missing a beat, I scooped him up and started to rock him as I paced around the room.  Clearly he was tired because I noticed his head dropping onto my shoulder shortly after I started pacing.  When he was almost asleep, I brought him back to the bed and nursed him to sleep again.

Although it’s more tedious this way, and definitely more exhausting for me, I feel better about it because it stems off the crying.  Indeed, when I reviewed The Science of Parenting, Sunderland writes that “if your under-five child is hyperaroused and out-of-control, pick her up and hold her.  With high levels of physical arousal, she won’t be able to focus on what you are saying, however simply it is expressed”.  When you hold your child, make sure you’re calm, not angry.  Your child needs to feel that you are in control because their out-of-control state can be very terrifying for them.  It helps them to know that there is some big and calm who can help them manage their intense emotions.

I’ve been reading one of the parenting forums about toddlers and sleep and it seems parents feel pressured to get their toddler to sleep in their own room after the age of one.  They do so even if it means crying spells and vomiting, although the latter seems to cause a certain amount of distress to some parents.  Somehow they can take the crying, but they can’t take the vomiting.  What I found particularly alarming is when parents write that they feel their child is vomiting on purpose.  I mean, we’re talking about a child under two, who is in a hysterical state - the child is highly unlikely to be in any frame of mind to manipulate his parents into feeling guilt by forcing himself to vomit.

Even adults have difficulty thinking straight when they’re upset.  Imagine how much more difficult it would be for a toddler…

While we’re on the topic of manipulation, yes, I don’t doubt that children are often testing the boundaries with their parents and seeing how far they can push them to get a reaction.  They are learning how to push our buttons through observation and they also quickly discern who the weakest link is.  At the same time, you can also learn a lot about your child as you watch him grow.

For instance, when Gavin throws a fake cry, I know instantly it isn’t real.  He makes a few coughing sounds that appears as if he’s trying to cry but not succeeding.  It’s also easy to get him to forget about his pretend state by engaging him in other activities.  Whereas when he’s really upset, it’s almost as if nothing you say appears to penetrate the howls.  It takes time to calm him down.

I guess that’s the challenge of being a parent - being able to distinguish when your child is playing up and when they’re crying for you to save them from their emotions.  As your child grows older and becomes more adept, it gets harder, but at this age (Gavin’s age now), I think it’s still quite straightforward.

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When I first got pregnant, I met a friend and experienced mother of two grown kids (one in University and the other still in school) who said motherhood was an amazing journey.  She also said that of the three stages in motherhood, the delivery was the easiest, raising the baby was the most challenging and the pregnancy was somewhere in the middle. 

Now that Gavin is growing more “terrible” everyday of his second year, I’m beginning to agree with her.  And when I think about having number two, I’m not sure I have it in me to go through all this again.  As much as I adore my son, there are times when he can be so trying, I don’t know whether to pull out all of my hair or curl up into a corner and cry. 

The last two nights have been particularly hard - yesterday more so than tonight because the hubby was late home from work so I had to deal with Gavin on my own.  I’m beginning to suspect the cause (or rather possible cause) of it all, but I won’t know until I test it out tomorrow.

It appears that Gavin has been hovering between 1 to 2 naps a day for some time now and in the past week, he seems to be closer to 1 nap than 2.  He’ll start to feel sleepy a couple of hours after waking and by the time I get him down for a morning nap, it’s closer to the afternoon than morning.  He’ll wake up in the early afternoon and refuse to sleep again until almost dinner time.  Since we eat dinner early, he ends up crashing immediately after dinner which doesn’t really work out for three reasons:

1. I can’t let him sleep because that means he won’t get to bed until almost midnight.

2. If I keep him up, he’s cranky through dinner and he won’t want to have dinner at all.

3. If we decide to go out for dinner, it’s even worse because by the time we get home, it’ll be pushing 7 to 8 hours since he woke up from his nap.

So in effort to adjust his routine a little to fit ours, I decided to move his nap time from morning to early afternoon.  I started this yesterday.  He slept poorly and only got in about an hour and a half which clearly wasn’t enough because he was still tired at dinner.  What was worse, when I took him up to sleep, he nursed for a while and then he had a crying fit until he vomited.  He seemed in a much better mood after throwing up and fell asleep relatively easily after roaming around the room and doing a little pre-bedtime exploration.

Figuring it was because his afternoon nap was disrupted, I tried it again today.  This time he had a more restful nap and slept for two and a half hours - quite decent for a single afternoon nap.  Everything seemed okay and he even decided himself that he was ready to say “bye” to Ah Mah and Ah Kong and go up to our room (normally, we have to fight him).  Since it was still early, I let him chill for a bit where he “read” some books, played with Daddy, tinkered on his Leapfrog Piano and roamed around the room again. 

When we were pushing five hours since he woke up, I decided it was time for him to sleep.  Unfortunately, Gavin had other ideas and sleep was not one of them.  I tried reasoning with him, I tried Toddlerese, I tried bargaining, I tried being firm and I tried ignoring him.  Suffice to say, none of it worked.  He cried again and he threw up again.

The hubby felt I should just have ignored him - which I did for about thirty seconds and then I would peer over the edge of the bed (he was on the floor), reach out my arms to him and wait to see if he would come to me or continue sitting on the floor.  If he persisted, I would wait another thirty seconds.  If he came to me, I would cuddle him, offer him the boob and try to soothe him.  I’ve tried this routine before and it worked, so I thought it might work again tonight - it was no go.

Finally, on the hubby’s suggestion, I turned on some music and let him watch the changing colour patterns on my Windows Media Player, while I paced up and down the room.  When he finally started dropping his head on my shoulder, I nursed him to sleep.  It took about five to ten minutes for him to fall asleep.  I figured he had to be really tired because it was about six hours since his nap and well, let’s face it, if I had cried like that I would have been quite exhausted by the end of it, too.

My suspicion is that Gavin isn’t taking too well to my attempt to reschedule his nap time because that’s the only major change that has happened recently. Perhaps I will try putting him down for a nap when he’s ready, regardless of the affects it has on our routine.  If we eliminate this crying and vomiting episode, the problem will be solved.  And if it doesn’t…  well, I don’t really want to think about that one.  I don’t think I could bear going through this again.

I know the hubby thinks I spoil him by responding to him when he cries, but I can’t ignore it when he cries like that.  I mean, I can ignore a fake cry but this was something different altogether.  Perhaps it’s time for me to take out “The Science of Parenting” again for a bit of revision.  It seems the lines are getting blurred and I’m not sure about what I’m doing any more.

At times like these, I’m not sure if I could endure having another child.  I honestly don’t know how other parents manage.

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It is a common misconception that the “terrible twos” begin when your toddler turns two.  In actual fact, the “terrible twos” refer to your child’s second year of life.  That means the moment your child turns one, he begins to enter the unchartered realm of the “terrible twos”.  The “terrible twos” hit their peak at eighteen months before slowly tapering off up to the second birthday.

So if I’ve noticed Gavin becoming more demanding, more set in his ways, more difficult to handle, it could be that the “terrible twos” are just starting to manifest. 

One of the things that Gavin complains about is having to sleep when he would much rather play - even if he is extremely tired.  Dream time became scream time when it came to putting Gavin to bed - whether it was for a nap or for the night.  That was until I discovered a trick to getting him to sleep with minimal fussing, fighting and screaming.  If Gavin refuses the breast, I’ll put him in the carrier in front of the TV or the computer (on the computer, I’ll usually play songs on Windows Media Player and switch the screen to visualisations).  Gavin seems to be mesmerised by the swirling and changing colours on the screen and will continue to look at it with minimal fussing until his eyes begin to droop.

Once the visualisations have achieved their hypnotic effect, I’ll switch the screen off (leaving the music playing) continuing to rock him in a circular motion and he’ll be completely asleep in about ten to fifteen minutes.

I’ve also been watching Harvey Karp’s “Happiest Toddler on the Block” DVD to reinforce what I learned from the book so I can handle Gavin’s tantrums.  Since he has already turned one, I thought it high time I start implementing some of the tactics Karp suggests about how to calm a screaming toddler.  I’ll tell you more about it in the next post…

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