The Light Sleeper

The boys started sharing the "nusery" a few days ago. We wanted to wait until Moses was sleeping through the night, which happened a while ago, but then it just seemed easier to keep them separated since Jack is such a light sleeper. I mean, you crack the door and his eyes fly open and bam he's awake and you have to settle him back to down. Such is the current situation - Jack is bawling his eyes out at top volume because I dared to try and put Moses down in the middle of his nap. His door should have a sign that reads "Woe betide you who enters whilst I slumber." Somewhere in the recesses of Jack's REM cycle, my presence set of alarm bells and now here we are. The thing is, I hate having to go in and coax him back to sleep with some sort of bribe: "Jack, you've got to go to sleep so you can eat crackers later." It's easier if we have somewhere to go because that's easy motivation but today we have no such agenda. So all I've got going in there is "Jack you haven't slept enough, you still need another hour at least" but because I've spoiled him with bribes, sense and sensibility is just not going to be enough to convince him I'm right. A two year old wants something worth going back to sleep for - and rest for rest's sake is not going to cut it.

So now I have two options. I can let him cry until he realizes on his own that "Hey, I'm still really tired, I should settle back down into sweet peaceful sleep" - which has never happened - or I can go in and do my best bargaining in the hopes he'll buy it. Right now I just want to go in and yell, I'm not going to lie. Yelling would be wrong of course, but there are times when I know nothing is wrong with him and he's just crying because he knows it produces results in his favor.

Well apparently I misjudged him - since writing that last sentence all has grown quiet. Apparently his reasoning skills are maturing. Sorry Jack - I underestimated your ability to make wise decisions.