Simon's Bedtime.

Last night (actually, the day I wrote this was a little bit ago) was Simon’s third day and fourth night falling asleep in his own room. For the last eight months we’ve been able to simply allow him to fall asleep at his leisure in his Fisher Price calming vibrations chair just about anywhere in the house without worrying if he’ll get enough sleep. He has been such a good baby. For months he’s been able to fall asleep without a care in the world: Taylor could be beating a drum three feet from his little head and Simon would snooze right through the noise; I could be watching Band of Brothers on the History Channel and Simon would snooze right through the shouting and shooting; or, our neighbors could be yelling smoke-laden obscenities at one another just outside our living room window– thank God we moved– and Simon would snooze right through the profane flurries of “f,” “b,” and “a” words. But recently, things have changed.

Simon can no longer fall asleep at will. He can no longer ignore extraneous noise like his sister playing grandpa’s chicken dance stuffed bird 15 times in a row, for instance. Over the last four days I’ve been implementing and shifting his nap and bedtime routine trying to find the best time to put him down for an afternoon nap or for bedtime at night. Thus far, while I’ve had some promising results, I haven’t been all that successful. This afternoon, for example, it took him 30 minutes to fall asleep. The good news is that he fell asleep, probably from sheer exhaustion, but he did eventually fall asleep in his own bed and in his own room. And tonight, to my yearning, he fell asleep in half that time.

I know all too well the need for young ones to have a consistent nap schedule. The first summer I had off with Taylor I could not seem to keep her naptime consistent. We were always hiking through the woods, going for walks around the block, or visiting friends or family. The price of such adventures always came around 5 or 6pm, hell hour. At that time of night, it’s too early for bedtime and much too late for her to take a nap. Incidentally, this was the same time her mother came home from work. Our hell hour lasted more than just one hour. Through trial and error I figured out her naptime should be at 1pm, regardless of how much grief she gave me. Now, a year later, I don’t even need to tell her it is her naptime. She tells me. For instance, this afternoon we were playing “follow Simon” when Taylor stopped, gathered her two blankets, her stuffed cat Smokey, both baby dolls, and pointed upstairs while saying, “Up!” Meaning she’s ready for her nap.

There is hope for the future. Simon will learn to fall asleep on his own. He will learn when his naptime is. He will learn when his bedtime is. I can only pray that he learns this soon. Hey, at least Taylor is able to nap even with her brother screaming in the neighboring bedroom!