my poor boy :(

[mamajoan]

I just put Isaac to bed at 7:15 tonight, at least an hour and a half earlier than usual. Why? Because he asked for it! He was so tired he couldn't stop crying. :( it was so sad.

Over the past couple of months Isaac has largely given up his nap -- not sure whether I've posted about that here -- and now has probably napped once or twice in the past three weeks or so. Naturally this makes him tireder than usual. Add in the fact that I've been waking him up earlier in the mornings (so I can get everyone dropped off and get me to work by 9ish), and completely failing at getting him to bed earlier...and then Daylight Savings...it all adds up to a super-overtired child. :(

So tonight I picked him up from preschool and as I was putting him in the car I noticed him looking teary, and I said "why are you sad?" and he said in that quivery-voiced trying not to cry tone, "I just want to go home and have bedtime!" OMG!

We drove to pick up Ruthie and Isaac was seriously a basket case. He couldn't handle climbing over the (tiny!) mounds of snow to get to the sidewalk after getting out of the car, or to get back into the car again. I had to pick him up like a baby and put him in the car. We got home and he wanted to watch his tv, so I put it on and played with Ruthie and did some dishes for a while until Thomas was over.

Then I asked Isaac if he was ready for dinner. He tearfully said no, he just wanted to go to sleep. He wanted to read a book (we always do before bed) so I said, like I always do, go ahead and pick one. So he walked over to the bookshelf and stood there staring at the books and started crying. I said, what's wrong? and he said, sobbing, "I just want to pick a short one!" (I have no emoticon for aww-mixed-with-LOL) So I chose a book for him, which normally he would NEVER permit. And he sat on my lap crying copious tears while I read the book. It was pathetic.

Then he cried all through changing his diaper and putting on his pajamas and brushing his teeth and refilling his humidifier. He insisted that he wasn't hungry. And he got right into bed and I tucked him in and put on his CD. I'm pretty sure he was out like a light. It was 7:15.

I feel so bad, because although part of it isn't my fault (the giving up nap, the DST), part of it is. I've been telling myself I should be better about putting him to bed a little earlier since we're getting up earlier...but I haven't done it. It's unfortunate, since the sky stays light later so we could theoretically be going outside to play or something; but right now, clearly, sleep needs to be a priority. So I hereby vow to do better from now on. We're starting the bedtime routine at 7:30 the next few nights, and we'll see how that goes.

(Meanwhile, Ruthie nursed for about an hour straight after Isaac was in bed, and now she's finally asleep. I hope she's out hard enough for me to put her down, because *I* didn't actually want to skip dinner....)

Sigh. My poor little guy. And here I've been blaming his moodiness and snarkiness of late on being 3...maybe he's just been sleep-deprived all this time? :( I win worst mama of the year! :(

Comments

[lissa-ann.livejournal.com]

:'(

That made me cry, too.

I'm menstrual, so maybe that's it.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

aww, poor tired boy. I hope he catches up on sleep!

(in that userpic, how old is he? I know I've seen it before, but
suddenly where I used to parse it as "big boy" I am parsing it
as "toddler in about the same age window as gljiva is now">.)

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I had to go digging for the original, which took a while :) but it's from November '04, so he was 17 months. Funny how perspective shifts, isn't it?

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

Poor little guy. Maybe he's coming down with something and that's why he's so tired?

I was thinking that 8:45 seems like a very late bedtime for a kid his age. Ilana goes to bed at 7:30 on weeknights, 8 or so on weekends.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Well, he has had a low-level cough for like weeks now, but it doesn't seem to be getting worse. If anything, it's better lately.

I know 8:45 is way too late. It's just a bad habit we got into when I was working and we had so little time together in the evenings. sigh.

[babyotto.livejournal.com]

ohhhhh

we're trying to get Otto to bed earlier, too; all too often, I wake her up at 8:20 to be out the door by 8:35

[ima-omi.livejournal.com]

I think the time change knocks them out more than we realize. A has been sleeping *strangely* -- napping at unexpected times, insomnia at night, asking to come downstairs because he sees the light peeking through the windows in the evening and then being fast asleep the next minute.

I hope a good night's sleep set Isaac right.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

yeah...well this sleep stuff has been going on since well before DST, but that definitely seems to have made it worse. It's so hard to explain to a little kid, you know? (Especially since the clock on my computer keeps resetting itself!)