I’m Only Sleeping

Lately Gertrude has had a strange relationship with sleep. By “strange relationship” I mean “no relationship whatsoever”. Or, more to the point, it’s an adversarial relationship.

Our bedtime ritual has remained the same. Brush teeth, hugs and kisses, story, cuddle, crib. But she’s trying to throw a wrench in those works. It’s not that she claims she isn’t tired. Or that she doesn’t simply want to go to sleep.

No, Gertrude insists that she doesn’t need sleep at all. None. Nada. Zip. According to her two-year-old brain, sleep is for pussies. There are only 24 hours in a day, so why should she have to miss out on some of the best, darkest hours?

It must be noted that afternoon naps are not taboo for her. She takes those. Sleeps well. But when bedtime rolls around, all hell breaks loose.

It started with plaintive wails and vocal protests after being put in her crib. Then she started pushing the time of protest back. First she started extending her arms and legs into a locked position to block entrance into the crib. Like trying to put a cat in a bathtub, only more cunning. Then she rolled it back to protests and stalling during story time. Then the hugs and kisses grew into political demands. Refusing to brush teeth came next and finally, the most radical step, she complains about bedtime at 4 p.m.

“I don’t need to go to bed,” she tells me over an afternoon snack of some sort of fruit pressed into shapes. “I don’t sleep. I want to play!”

I explain to her that the only thing to do after 10 p.m. is to watch the news or Ron Popeil hawking his latest invention, The Ronco Home Prostate Exam®. She doesn’t care. She insists she doesn’t need sleep.

But, as her parents, we need an hour a day where we are semi-conscious where there are no demands put upon us. It’s like our quiet time before bed time. We unwind and pretend that we’re married and like each other.

Gertrude, though, is continuing her protests from 8 p.m. through and sometimes past 10 p.m. We’ve done everything that the parenting books suggest. Ignore it. Reassure her sense of security. Sing "God Only Knows". Give her a shot of whiskey. Ether.

But none of them work. She’s wound so tight that she fights sleep with a veracity that most people only reserve for the last piece of chocolate cake at a Weight Watchers meeting.

Periodically, we go in and give hugs and kisses, then a retuck. She stands there, little arms clutched around my neck, shaking with sadness and woe. She pleads with me and cries. But I have to insist that she sleep. I mean, it’s biological.

What’s worked best is to sit in her rocking chair while she falls asleep. I know all the parenting Nazis are going to tell me that this is wrong. I should remain tough. But the thing is she never really had trouble sleeping before. This is a new development and, to hear her cries, not just a ploy. She is worried about something.

I’m told that she may be going through separation anxiety. Perhaps. And, in her case, I think she’s afraid that we’re all going to move out in the middle of the night without leaving her milk or Graham crackers. I understand the fear. I have it too. Only I’m worried the family will take all my CDs. Or, worse, leave the CDs, all scratched up, and take the players.

So the nightly battles will continue. A mixture of sternness and loving tenderness while we try to sort out what’s wrong. When we figure it out, she’ll probably get over it and start revolting against something else.

But I have to reassure her that we won’t be leaving her. Somehow I have to make her feel safe and secure.

And honestly, I didn’t mean it when I told her she was interrupting the Daily Show.

It was a rerun, anyway.