Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Sleep slip

So, as I'm a single parent for the time being, I am responsible for our toddler every minute of the day. It's not extraordinarily hard or inconvenient, but routine is everything to me, as I depend on it to get me through the day-to-day.

I have been trying to put Sawyer down early, because the norm for him is bedtime at 11:30 p.m. Granted, he sleeps in til 10:00 am, but it's not realistic to be hyper and playing around when the entire neighborhood is sleeping peacefully in their beds. So last night, I skipped his nap and put him to bed at 8:00 pm! Seems a bit more normal for a child his age, eh. He slept like a rock, and woke up at 6:00 am.

Problem with that is I didn't go to bed til midnight. I was not ready to start my day at 6:00 am today. I'm shameless to admit this, but in my frame of mind, I thought it'd be fine to baby-proof the upstairs, set Sawyer's toys out, turn on cartoons, and fall back asleep on the couch. And that's exactly what I did. I didn't even think about it, whether it was good parenting or not. I just did it.

Thank my lucky stars, Sawyer did just fine. He loves to walk around and drag his toys from one room to the other. He likes to play with his shoes. He likes to play with Hershey.  ( I imagine he did all those things). And all the while, I was passed out on the couch. Sleeping, dreaming, squeezing in every minute I could before I had to start my day.

I am soo ashamed I can't even fathom what could have potentially happened if I wasn't awake.

I woke up to him crying, as he was trying to push himself under the couch, but got stuck. I picked him up and laid him next to me. Apparently he fell asleep too. Finally, around 10:00 am, our normal waking up time, we both woke up and he flashed me a huge smile, jabbered something, and started playing with his toys again. Phew. He wasn't mad at me for abandoning him so I could fall into a deep, selfish slumber.