Sigh. Yeah. This is one of the many many many reasons I stopped at two kids. It does get better eventually. Eventually. I seriously feel your pain. I wish you’d stop dredging up bad memories, though. :)

Ok, I know this is not necessarily a plea for advice, but I’ll tell you what keeps my kids from harassing me (as much) in the night –

They get sippies of water in their beds (yeah, I know – but I’ve never had anyone wet their bed, so…)

They have lullaby cds that play all night, and special nightlights (my son’s is a volcano). They get books and stuffed animals in their beds. And recently, in a fit of desperation, I let my daughter have her Magna-Doodle in her bed, too. I’m telling you, it works – we have far fewer bedtime/middle of the night hassles.

Or maybe they are just drowning in the stuff I chuck in there and I can’t hear them…. eh, whatev.

I’m clucthing my sides right now from laughing so hard. Yup, that’s a toddler alright.

OMG where to they think of these things? A LEAFBLOWER?

Theo talks about “Sharks in da ocean not gonna bite me?” Yeah, a great topic before drifting off to sleep.

I thought I was the only one that had leafblower dreams.

Is he still taking an afternoon nap? Maybe he needs more exhaustion in his day…sure works for me.

I hate to tell you this, I’m only laughing because it’s terribly sad that my 9yr old still does this to me. About once a month I beg him to let me sleep through the night. The other 29 nights, he feels compelled to come give me a hug, ask for me to straighten his blankets, kill a noisy cricket OUTSIDE his bedroom window, etc, etc, etc.

Last night, the 3rd time my almost 2.5 year old trotted from her bed to the door, my husband was there to meet her. She looked up at him and she said “How many times do I HAFTA tell you?” How do I begin to discipline that?

sight, remember the days. I opted for being fairly stern. A total push over in most other parenting arenas I’ve been fairly strict on sleeping, out of total necessity. they are pretty good now. Sometimes they don’t feel like going to sleep, so I let them choose one (or two) toys, and they can play with them in bed. As long as they stay there I ignore, and everyone gets some sleep.

good luck, really funny post. you gotta love em though

I now understand why you had three naps a day while we were in New York. DUDE. I feel for you.

This post made me laugh. It’s not easy to write the way a toddler speaks, however, you have captured it perfectly! I have a 2 year old that has conversations now and it’s the funniest thing – until bedtime.

I think you deserve a nap now.

This happens at my house too. Except my lovely 2 year old boy wants to play hockey. And his babies say, “No goal.” And he insists on sleeping with is stick. I love the sound of his voice between 6 am and 8 pm but after that I just want him to sleep for the love of rest!

It’s wrong that just the title of this made me guffaw. Reasoning with a toddler. Hilarious.

Got through this with my son a few years ago and am SO not looking forward to doing it again with my daughter.

Oh my, I got a good laugh out of this!

We are also currently having sleeping issues. My boy is 2 and four months and the bedtime routine currently involves a medley of give me the t-shirt the t-shirt NO not the t-shirt the sock with the frog on it THE FROG DAMMIT no not the sock, the truck, what do you mean I can’t have a truck in bed with me RAAAAAR for an hour. Then he’s fine till 5am when it is inexplicably suddenly time to get up and start the day. Cue me engaging with my first bout of morning sickness at least two hours earlier than I would like and relying on BBC iPlayer too much while I attempt to join the world of the living.

Dylan sounds so adorable, but they are exhausting. Hope the sleeping improves soon.

I am so there with you that it’s not even funny. Seriously, I read your entry and felt the desperate need for sleep and the absolute powerlessness. I have my 4 year old and 1 year old sharing a bedroom, so when we go through this there’s the terror of the other one waking up too. Good luck to you :)
Swimming helps to wear out the 4 year old.

My almost 2 year old sits in her crib and babbles, then pauses, listens, then laughs hysterically and screams “funny FUNNY!” until we tell her to go back to sleep. Then she cries.

My 3-year-old still does this sometime. And, I swear, I kind of wish my teenagers would, sometimes….

Good thing he’s cute, huh?

Two words: Chewable Melatonin.

This is exactly like the (one-sided) conversations I have with MY two year old. Except he adds his own personal narrative, “I throw this doggie on the floor. I get out of bed wight now. I wake up my bruddah.” etc.

“Oh my aching God, kid.”

I would have laughed harder, but my kid (in utero) probably would have woken back up and resumed punching my ribs.
Thanks for the stifled laugh.

hahahaha so funny!!! he is soo cute..but also maddening im sure

Hmm, I’d say as much as it will suck for the rest of you (maybe get Riley some earplugs?), let him just CIO. Don’t. Give. In. You can’t. As soon as you open the door on it, they won’t leave you alone – they have that attention, negative or positive. It sucks for a few nights but then it gets blissfully better. If you do have to get up with him for some reason, No Talking. NONE. Not one word. The conversation and stimulation is what he is looking for.
I wasn’t a CIO proponent until ours reached an age where dammit, he should be sleeping through the night, and then I jumped on board (I was lenient until he was 18 months!).
Shut his door completely. If you are scared he will get out of the crib, get a crib tent. Does he have a lovey? Keep that in there – keep several. And a sippy of water. My son actually considers his Wa-tuh to be one of the “guys,” heh heh, and it was one of the keys to getting him to STTN.
He is in a big boy bed now with bed rails, and at first we kept his door cracked but he started getting up and coming to see us in the night. So we shut his door and he can’t open it. He howled for a few nights (hearing him wimper by the door about broke my heart), but then everything was fine. Now he STTN almost every night, and if he does wake, he puts himself back to sleep unless something is really wrong.
Our problem now is that he is waking before 6am when he hears my husband’s first of 57843920574 snooze alarms, and can’t go back to sleep. And he doesn’t nap. So bedtime is now 7:30 or earlier.
My rambling point though is that you gotta be tough on his little ass. It will suck for everyone else in the house, but trust me, after a few nights of hell, it WILL get better. Do it over a 3 day weekend or something so the rest of you can take naps or sleep in a bit if it becomes necessary.
Oh, and if he doesn’t have one, you might consider getting a noise machine for his room – one with different sounds. That has helped our guy a lot. When he does nap, he prefers the “amazon jungle” or “island surf” sounds. At night he gets “cooling fan” or “white noise.”

Excellent podcast, and thanks for including us. As usual, you did an excellent job at summarizing what blogging is all about. We really do love the information exchange with our colleagues

I feel your pain, but all I can think of is Trace Adkins song your gonna miss this. My daughter is a senior this year and is going off to colege before long and believe me you will miss it.For those that say well she just doesn’t remember what it is like to have a toddler. I also have a 14 year old, and a very lively 4 year old both of which are boys!!!! :)

I just began reading your blog and I LOVE it! My son, who just turned 2, has a lot to say, about nearly everything. I was changing his diaper yesterday, in normal fashion, and he said, “Mommy, be CAREFUL!”