GO TO BED

Dear Spike:

You raged against the sandman this evening, but ultimately he won the night. He always does, after all. But sometimes it's a KO in the first. And sometimes it's a judge's decision after 15 hard-fought rounds. Sometimes there's a rematch. And occasionally, there are two rematches.

We've approached the task of getting you to sleep at night in a dozen different ways. We've put you down early (you wake up in the middle of the night ready to play.) We've put you down late ("10 p.m.?" you say, "How about 1 a.m.? No, how about 2 a.m.? Or maybe 3 a.m.?") We've tried to overfeed you, (you wake up sick,) to over-milk you (you wake up wet,) to let you run yourself into exhaustion (you're a bit like a perpetual motion machine, sometimes once you get started you just can't stop.)

We've tried letting you cry yourself to sleep. We've tried letting you go to bed between us. We've tried soft music. We've tried utter silence.

You're just not big on sleeping through the night. And you're really not all that hot on going to bed in the first place, either.

So far, the best plan for getting you to slumber at a reasonable hour seems to be this:
1) regular naps throughout the day but none after 4 p.m.,
2) dinner followed by a bit of playtime
3) a warm bath followed by a course of oatmeal or rice cereal
4) warm pajamas
5) a big bottle of milk
6) a nice long rock and a lullaby

Problem is, it's a delicate balance. Once thing goes wrong and we're back to square one. And no matter what we do, nothing but nothing guarantees you'll sleep through the night — sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. And heaven forbid that one of us gets up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, because one flush of the toilet is all it takes to wake you from your deepest dreams.

Ultimately, I'm sure, we'll be able to count on a full night's sleep. But right now it seems as though that might not be until you go away to college.

And then again, it might not be so easy to sleep then, either.

Love,
dad