Monday, April 21, 2008

Barbarians at the Gate


It is official; Jamie and I are the Meanest Parents in the Whole Wide World. I remember bestowing that title on my own parents, thinking at the time that they had it wrapped up for eternity. If you've been following this post (and since there are about 8 of you, I think, checking in at various times), you will be aware that our experiences with the Big Boy Bed began relatively well and then deteriorated precipitously. Getting up in the middle of the night and walking Duncan back to his bed has not been a huge deal. There are even many nights now that he stays in bed. No, the new development is his gleeful refusal to stay in bed for naps and bedtime. It took about a month for him to realize that HE DOESN'T HAVE TO GO TO BED. It used to happen every couple of nights, but last week we experienced several, consecutive, torturous nights of chasing him back to his room repeatedly from 7:30 until 8:30 and even sitting with him in the dark, physically preventing him from leaving the bed. Our one hour of free time shrank to almost nothing. Through the miasma that has become our evening hours, we were forced to conceive of a plot so nefarious that it puts even Ferber to shame. We gated his room. Sunday afternoon, he stood at the door and shook the gate, screaming, crying, and imploring all the while, for almost an hour before he fell limply asleep in the doorway. It was miserable. Sunday night, he shook the bars for about half an hour before I escorted him back to his bed, where he quickly fell asleep. I'm too cautious to perceive this as progress just yet. We'll see what this evening brings. On the other hand, we have all had three solid nights of sleep where NO ONE wandered around in the night. So, we are the Meanest Parents in the Whole Wide World, but we are more well rested than we had been, which makes us a lot more pleasant to be around.

(For those activists among you who are worried about the safety issues, we remove the gate as soon as he's asleep in case the monsters try to chase him. The only place he can get to in the middle of the night is our room.)

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