Since the day that I posted my Declaration of Surrender, Camille has been sleeping like a new child. It hasn’t been perfect (life never is), but she is actually sleeping most nights without a big screaming fit at the beginning and waking up happy at the end. It’s like a switch has been flipped and she’s entered the world of normal toddler sleep.
So what caused the change? I was sitting around thinking about this coming summer and what I was going to do with the boys. When we moved here in April last year we had a really hard transition. No friends, trapped in the house, and once Lucy came along they didn’t even have any chores to do. They moped around the house because they had nothing to do. They were unhappy because they had no purpose. I looked at Camille wandering around the living room with that same unhappy look on her face and I realized that she had no purpose either.
When the boys were little, I incorporated them into my daily life because I had to: “Time to clean the bathroom! Here’s a rag. Help mommy by wiping the edge of the bathtub.” Going to the grocery store: “See if you can find the apples for me. Should we get red ones or green ones today?” Since I went everywhere with three young children, I knew that things were going to take longer and I didn’t mind the extra “help.” But with Lucy around the time I spend with Camille is less directed. “Why don’t you play with your toys while mommy sits next to you and reads her book?” I do not like playing. It drives me crazy. I’m happy to be in the room and do things side by side, but I am not the kind of mom that is going to get on the floor and play pretend. So she whines about her toys and I whine that she’s not letting me read my book. Two peas in a pod.
Even when I had things to do like running errands or going to the grocery store I usually left her at home with Lucy because I figured she’d be happier there than being dragged from place to place. And when I did take her with me it was more of a “hang out on mommy’s back while mommy works” kind of outing. What I realized is that she needs to feel useful as part of our family and she needs to have time each day where she moves around under her own power outside the house.
The first day we went to the grocery store together. She walked while I pushed the stroller that would hold our groceries. She helped pick up the milk and carried it about 7 steps before it became too heavy. Then she held the bag while I put the apples in. While Josh waited at the deli counter, we went to find pretzels for the boys’ lunch. That’s all it took. That night she was asleep in minutes, satisfied after a productive day. The next day Josh had to go pick up something from the mall and he took her with him. Since we’ve been so used to moving efficiently through a store it takes a conscious decision to slow down and let Camille direct her own steps for a while. It really is like trying to herd a cat as she runs from one thing to the next with her funny looking full body wiggle.
Of course all this makes me more tired, but I’d rather be tired from my day’s “work” than tired because I’m not getting to sleep at night. Our next goal: a child that sleeps in. Happy at 5:30am is better than yelling at 5:30am, but barely. No child coming from my gene pool should be waking up with a smile before 7am. At the earliest.