Sleep is for the birds and (fingers crossed) teenagers

Have you ever had one of those nights where you were woken up so many times that, at one point of wakefulness, you could not believe it was still nighttime?  And despite your fatigue, you almost did not want to go back to sleep because you knew that another premature awakening was waiting for you?  That was my night last night.

My daughter is an amazing sleeper.  Since six weeks of age, she has slept 7 to 9 hours almost every night.  I credit my pediatrician and her excellent coaching (Of me, not the kid).  Last night was one of the exceptions.  At 1 am, she was upset about being awake but later decided it was fantastic.  Normally, I love the sounds of a cooing baby practicing baby aerobics.  At two in the morning, it is actually quite difficult to sleep when the person in the bassinet next to you is having a raucous, one girl party.  Apparently, violating city noise ordinances is the natural next step after breaking out of your swaddle and spitting out your binkie.

When my son started sleeping through the night around 13 months, my husband and I were thrilled.  After one solid night of sleep, we said to each other, "I feel amazing!  Let's have more kids!"  We did not realize that a one year old sleeping all night was a short-lived accomplishment.  Potty training and nightmares lay just around the corner.

It is unfair that these two developmental hurdles overlap.  It gives my son two reasons to be up at night and two reasons to crawl into our bed.  It has, on more than one occasion, left me thinking how ineffective a mattress protector is when the person it was purchased for is in my bed.  Also, do they sell waterproof pajamas for moms? 

While the urine is inconvenient, the nightmares break my heart.  At 3am, my son arrived in our room demanding assistance with wet pjs.  We groaned.  At 4am, he cried out in his sleep, "I'm afraid!"  My heart ached.  It was nice to be able to hug him immediately but how dare scary lions and bad guys enter my son's dreams?  

We reassure him that he is always safe with us.  We try to empower him by encouraging him to put bad guys in time-out for inappropriate behavior.  We cheer for him when his play involves chasing scary lions from our house.  We try to maintain some control by limiting what he is exposed to on tv. As much as we do to protect him, it is hard to know that we cannot protect him from fear and his own imagination.  Harder still is realizing that someday he will be independent in a world with real bad guys. I think we are handling it ok.  This morning he picked up an imaginary creature and handed it to me, "Here, Mommy.  It's a nice, little, baby bad guy. Awwww."

If bladders can be controlled and imaginary bad guys can be tamed, maybe small humans can learn to sleep through the night every night. Until then, I will be thankful for strong coffee and good concealer.