sleep

I'm wondering what happened to the two lovely red-headed children who used to live with me who used to go to bed at 7:30pm with out a peep.  Those two lovely children also napped two hours a day.

Someone took those children and replaced them with kids who turn into crazy gremlins at bed time.  They get out of bed, climb the walls and windows, play with toys and see how long they can keep each other awake....and then the next day they are cranky.  They used to get 14 hours of sleep a day (yes, it was a lot) these days they are lucky if they get 11.  They are falling asleep sometimes as late as 9:30pm and waking up at 6:30am.  I've tired shortening naps to 1 hour hoping they will sleep longer at night.  It doesn't seem to help.

Back in the day, we used to take the kids in their room, kiss them hug them, put them in bed and say good-bye until morning.  I now spend sometimes more than 2 hours of my day trying to get those kids to go to sleep.  I'm the mother I never wanted to me.

I'll tell you what happened....

We took away the pacifiers
The kids learned to climb out of their porta cots (pack n play) so we transfered to toddler beds
Time change and longer summer day light hours