Our 2-year-old has been having a tough week. He’s happy one minute and irritable the next. Picky with food. Super opinionated about everything. And of course his sleep is suffering too – which in our house translates to extreme bedtime resistance and hours of screaming between the highly questionable hours of midnight and 4am.
Lots of fun for the parents.
Luckily, both of us are certified google doctors so we’ve gone through everything. Could he have an ear infection? Or worms? Maybe he’s teething again? But apart from disturbed sleep, none of the symptoms fit.
Yesterday during an intense medical research session (read: Google search) I found a couple of articles on the “2 year sleep regression.” These made more sense: basically new separation anxiety, nighttime fears and lengthened wake-times all join together to screw up toddlers’ sleep for a little while. Satisfied with my diagnosis, I sent the links over to my husband.
“So?” he asked later, ever the Mr. Fix-it, “How do we fix it? What do we do?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “We just keep doing what we’ve always done, we stay consistent, and it’ll pass.”
All of this frantic searching for something wrong, something to fix, something to do had made me miss the point. With the exception of when there’s something really wrong – in which case we usually know right away – our job is to show our kids that everything’s okay. That even if they’re having a hard time, acting out, testing boundaries – we’re still here. We’ve got it. They can lose their shit and throw everything on the floor we’ll still be grounded, calm and in charge. We’ll know what to do.
With this renewed strength I had a chat with GG before bedtime. Summarized the tough week we’ve had. Explained the routine anew. Prepared him for every step. And what do you know – bedtime was a breeze and he slept for 11 hours straight.
So much of this game is about how we handle it – rather than the details. When we stop letting the little things ruffle us, the big things are so much easier.
Mama in the Moment 
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