The Sleep Struggle

Since Shabd was born, we've struggled with sleep...both us and him. We were not getting enough and Shabd just didn't need a lot. Shabd will be 11 months next week, and he still doesn't need much sleep, we still don't get enough sleep! I think it's time to accept the sad fact that i will never sleep soundly again.

Until 3 weeks ago, strangely coinciding with the start of Shabd's rhume (cold), Shabd had a fantastic routine. He ate his dinner at 17h00, bath at 18h00 then doo-doo and in bed by 19h30 - at the latest! Leaving us free to eat dinner together, still a luxuary post Shabd's arrival, and catch up. All of the sudden, it seems that Shabd has decided that he is now old enough to be part of the dinner routine and has subsequently started taking his afternoon nap progressively later so that he has the fuel to keep him going till much later.

This resulted, as you can imagine, in parents completly out of skelter with their trusted routine! "What happened?!" And along with being out of skelter, comes annoyance. Until someone quite plainly pointed out that i was being selfish! Shabd misses us during the day and wants to spend more time with us during the evening. Instead of mourning the change in routine, enjoy this new one!

So we've relaxed on the 'rules' and the 'routines' business and Shabd joins us for dinner and catches-up, adding his bit to our conversations now.

Being creatures of habit, we still try and train him to sit in his high chair during dinner, as a well behaved little boy should. A duty he obligingly does for about 10 minutes, before clamouring onto his papa to sneak a morsel off his papa's dinner plate.

Shabd must really enjoy spending all this extra time with us during the eveings, as it's a struggle to get him to go to sleep, despite large yawns and eye rubbing and chook sucking. We need to prepare his doo-doo, dim all the lights and then take turns between us for the final bedtime nodding-off-to-sleep ritual of either Akash carring Shabd round the house singing his favourite KK song or I gently bouncing Shabd on his big blue ball singing "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" until he drifts off to dreamland. Not an easy feat when Shabd is positively determined to stay awake, after all, the world is so much more exciting when my mum and papa are home!

By the time Shabd finally falls asleep, we're exhausted and quickly follow his lead to dreamland...And just to make sure he's not been left out of too much excitement and goings-on, Shabd wakes up at around 23h00 or 03h00 or both, for a quick sip of doo-doo and a looksee! I'm told that i can expect to sleep well again when Shabd grows up and leaves the home a mature, responsible man. Until then, i've been advised to accept my reality, sleep will be not mine!