Nothing is as mysterious and frustrating as a tired child. This rings true for infants through...well, I don’t know, but it’s for sure 6 and possibly 10, check back in roughly four years from now for an update.
Why, when children are beyond tired, do they refuse to sleep? I’m talking so tired they turn into even less of a logical human being than they already were. I say this lovingly because it was after a post about arguing with children and feeling guilty about “not listening to the small stuff” a friend pointed out, you can’t have a logical conversation with an illogical person. While this statement applies to adults as well, it’s so true with kids! Sometimes you just have to toss in the towel and have the “oh really? Wow! No way! But how? Goodness why?” Conversation where they keep talking and you just acknowledge that in the particular moment your kid just needs to talk and feel like it’s an important conversation. In moments like that with my 6 year old, I genuinely struggle not to guide the conversation toward some logical progression. It’s painful for me to just sit and listen to her chatter about completely opposite ideas she’s talking about as if they are the same thing, or inventions that would maybe be really cool, that already exists and we use regularly.
Back to the tired. So I’m talking about when your kids are arguing about how not tired they are but they are sobbing. Or they are screaming how they are N O T having quiet time E V E R again. And ten minutes later they are fighting about how “open closed” the blinds are. They get into all out world war scale arguments over which essential oil scent is diffusing. One is freezing the other is “as hot as the desert” and so the ceiling fan conundrum plagues our house once more.
My personal favorite? When my 4 year old is so physically and mentally tired she C A N N O T sit still. It’s hilariously frustrating to watch. Because if she did in fact lay still for 30 seconds she would fall into a much needed blissful sleep. But she refuses. In my early 20s if you had told me a child would be able to keep themselves awake merely by breathing in a different pattern so they could watch their belly “be funny” I wouldn’t have believed you. Because in your early 20s when you wake up exhausted and don’t want to go into work, you truly believe that you understand exhaustion. You feel it in your bones. Or so you think, because this is before the days of slap happy exhaustion you see daily with your children.
Somehow your children manage to wind up before they suddenly crash. It makes no sense. How is being tired somehow a stimulant for kids?
My sister is a childcare genius. She used to watch 6 kids. And somehow get all of them ranging in age from 6 months to 6 years old, to nap. She’s get them all cozy in their own spots on the living room floor. Everyone had their own pillow and blanket. She’d put on the classic “soundscapes of the season” TV music Channel and then sit at their feet. This took expert level organization because she knew which kids couldn’t be next to each other, which blankets would distract which kids (because YES a child fighting sleep will be distracted BY a BLANKET!!!) and which kid needed to be on the end because they wake up before everyone else. So she gets everyone situated and then she would sit at their feet and repeat mantras like
“We are closing our eyes, gently not squeezing them shut”
“We are not playing with our hands, our toes, our tongues, our lips, our ears our hair or anything else. We are laying still”
“We are not breathing loudly, pushing our bellies out or sucking them in. We are resting and breathing normal”
“We are actually closing our eyes”
“We are not wiggling our noses, our toes, our legs, feet, body or head”
“Close your eyes”
Over and over. The things she had to say astounded me. Like who thinks to wiggle their nose to stay awake?!?
I remember being so tired in red phase of basic training that I would somehow fall asleep sitting up with my eyes open. No amount of nose wiggling was going to keep me awake!
Even infants, so tired they cry and cry and cry until snuggled just perfectly, swayed and patted at just the right angle before they finally cave and fall asleep.
What if every tired adult did this? The world would be so loud, even more dramatic and obnoxious than it already is and I just don’t think many of us would have friends.
Nap time. It’s a glorious golden time of day when the stars align and all four children rest peacefully. I don’t even require that they all sleep, but at least rest.
But man is it a struggle. The key to a naptime success for us, is lots of activity right before lunch. A filling lunch and then me pulling an Aunt Manda. I sit on their dresser at the foot of their beds and I stare them down into submission. Until they are sleeping soundly looking like angels.
Then starts the struggle of, so do I sleep, fold laundry, clean the floors, meal plan, work out, finish that TV show I’ve been wanting to, finish the book I started 3 years ago, lose myself on an internet deep dive, make more coffee, call a friend or just sit here and watch them sleep a little longer?
Nap times could be productive but rarely are because even if I don’t sleep, I too need to rest, unwind, unplug and just be for a moment.
My Grandmother use to play the quiet water, still water game with us. She would say “quiet water, still water, 1..2..3...” Who ever laid the stillest and quietest would win. I don’t think we ever actually won anything, but she did, when we were all out cold.