Sydney & Denny

Sydney & Denny
September at the Park

Friday, December 17, 2010

My son won't take a nap!

He watched me from my bedroom window!!!
So yesterday my wife was off from work, which was nice. It gave us a little time to hang out together and get some things done. We have been wanting to get in the basement and reorganize some stuff, and we finally were making the time to do it. The whole family took Sydney to school and afterward Stacy, Denny and I returned home. We took Denny upstairs and put him down for his nap, and we went down to the basement. We have a monitor that we can hear what is going on in their room with, and we took it to the basement with us. We thought he was going to be really tired as he had gotten up EARLY in the morning. I'm talking before the rooster early! He has a tendency to do that from time to time. So, we thought we were going to have the time to just get down there and get the work we needed to do done. That was really dumb of us. From the monitor we could hear him messing around up in his bedroom. He has recently taken to getting out of his bed and playing in the closets. He has been told repeatedly to not do that, but like that really matters right? Well, we hollered up to him to get in bed, and he listened. Sort of. He would go running into his bed, but a few minutes later we would hear him get up, and start causing some other form of chaos. Well, we just let him do his thing, thinking he would eventually tire himself out to the point that he'd fall down from exhaustion. Nope! It got time for me to leave to get Sydney and as I walked out to the van, I took a bag of garbage to the dumpster. I could hear him banging on Stacy and my bedroom window yelling "DaDa, DaDa, Bye!" He watched me the entire time! What a little shit!
I had to report him!
Well, I just can't let that slide. I got on my phone and called Stacy to let her know what he was up to. By the time she answered, he was downstairs and had the door opened and was waving to me through the storm door. This is about an hour and a half after he had been originally put down for his "nap." We think that he's so used to it just being me and him at home during the day that when he saw me leave, he panicked. Thinking I was leaving him there all alone! I've often thought about doing that. Of course I am joking, kind of. 
Well, this just illustrates a problem we have been having with him lately. He won't stay in his bed for his nap. I will put him up there and tell him "Now don't you get up. You are up here to sleep. You stay in bed, PLEASE!" Never works. I'll hear him messing around before I get to the bottom of the steps. I usually let him play for a bit before I yell up to him to please get in bed. Eventually he always falls asleep. Sometimes it's an hour after originally putting him up there, sometimes longer. I don't have a problem with him playing up there before going to sleep. The problem is what he does while he is "playing." 
It's like he's the Tasmanian Devil!
I usually go upstairs and find a mess the likes of which are unmatched by any normal human children. I've stated before that I think he's from another planet, and I think this is just another point towards that. I'll find at least two books that he has ripped the pages out of. Good thing we have EVERY SINGLE CHILDREN'S BOOK EVER WRITTEN in our house. That way we have plenty more for him to rip up tomorrow! I've found clothes from both the kid's closet and ours, thrown about the floor. Once, I found three or four picture albums thrown on the floor(they were on a higher shelf in our closet.) They weren't really important pictures though. Just our wedding album, and the births of both kids. So you know it was really no big deal that he had pulled pictures out of each album. I often find the ENTIRE ROLL OF TOILET PAPER unrolled and strewn throughout the upstairs like he was TPing our house. Sometimes he has on an entirely different outfit  than what he was wearing when I put him up there. Sometimes, he's just naked. I once found him sleeping halfway under his sister's bed!
So, what I'm saying is, we have a problem! I close the three doors that are upstairs. The bathroom, the hall closet, and our bedroom. None of which have locks. Even though I'm not sure locks are a problem for him. The closets have sliding doors, and I am not sure I've seen baby locks for those type of doors, but as I said, he would figure out how to open them. I can't sit upstairs while he's up there, because he will know I'm up there and want to play with me. He needs a nap though. Without one he acts like he did tonight. A SCREAMING, CRANKY, OUT OF CONTROL LUNATIC!  Somebody please help me. Please tell me that one of my readers out there knows some magical secret to keeping him in bed. I've had people tell me to give him cough syrup to make him sleepy, but I'm just not that guy. So, I am going to put my faith in the blog world that someone out there knows how to solve this problem. You guys have helped me with so many other topics before, I know you won't let me down this time. And, if you don't have the answer, but think someone you know does, please pass this on to them. Not only could I use the help with this issue, but I could always use another reader.
   
I know you're thinking he doesn't look that crazy, but trust me. This is the poster child for crazy children everywhere. The thing is, I love this kid more than I could ever describe and I don't want to change a single thing about him. I just want him to not do things that could maybe hurt himself. Like pissing Daddy off to the point of NO RETURN!
Thanks again, and have another great day.

3 comments:

  1. He's more than likely realized there's no boundaries when its time for his nap. if you need him to take a nap during the day, they for a while you might want to camp outside his door and keep putting him back in bed . Tell him once and then keep doing it but without saying anything. If it lasts the whole nap time, it lasts the whole nap time. I know the 90 minutes or so he's down gives you time to get things done, but if you're cleaning up the mess he makes at the same time, you're actually being preventative. It'll take a few days, but eventually he should get the hint as long as you're consistent.

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  2. Eric, I'm starting to give that a shot. Only thing is, he sees me and wants to get up and play. It ends up being a scream fest once I put him back in bed. He's very hard-headed. I'm not sure where he gets that from! LOL! I'm "nothing" like that!

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  3. Naptime is a limited engagement. At about 2.5-3 its toodeloo to nappy time. You may be at that point. I remember when my youngest stopped naptime. That was a rude awakening...

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