For the first two mornings, we ignored it. After all, it always takes some time to
adjust back to normal life after being on vacation. But it was getting progressively louder and
we were having a decidedly cranky boy in the evening. The third morning, I gave him some verbal
warnings and he would quiet down for a little while but ten minutes later, we
were listening to the adventures of the Octonauts at max volume again.
This morning, I decided it was time to take action. Alex will be home tomorrow and he does not
deal well with being woken up early.
Since I don’t want to deal with fights starting before the sun comes up,
Nathan must relearn the lesson of allowing other people to sleep.
I don’t mind him waking up early. Everyone’s got their own rhythm and I don’t
want to force him into something unnatural for him. But I don’t think quiet is too much to
expect, even from a five year old.
Before his vacation, he was waking up and going downstairs quietly to
watch TV, also quietly. That worked
perfectly for me. He might be up early
but when the TV is on, he curls up on the couch and just watches, which gives
him a little more rest than bouncing around and playing. Everyone else gets to sleep and we’re all
happy.
This morning when he started to shout, I went into his room
and sat down on the bed. He was not
pleased to see me and hid under his blankets.
I explained to him that Mommy and Daddy were trying to sleep and he
needed to be quiet. He wasn’t happy and
started to shout at me that it wasn’t fair.
I shushed him, perhaps a little more harshly than I meant to, and he dove
back under the blankets. I decided to
lay down with him to keep him quiet.
I could have sat in the rocking chair but frankly, I was so
tired I needed to lie down. I grabbed a
spare pillow and put it down at the foot of the bed and curled up. To my surprise, as soon as I was settled,
Nathan came down and curled up against my back.
He tried to talk to me a few times but I reminded him it was still
sleeping time. After about half an hour,
I could tell by his breathing that he had fallen asleep. I thought about trying to extricate myself
from little arms and legs and go back to my own bed but I was more than halfway
asleep myself.
I’m not sure how much sleep we got. I was in his room for over two and a half
hours but I kept drifting off and waking up.
Nathan bounced around several times but stayed put in the room and was quiet.
I suspect I’m going to have to do this several more times
before he gets the message again. And
I’ll have to keep an eye on how much he’s enjoying it. The last thing I want is to encourage more
noise because he wants to have cuddles with Mommy. But if I can get back our early morning
sleeping hours, it’ll be worth it.
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