A mom of a toddler looks back on sleep training and ponders on if it was worth it to sleep train or not (spoiler–it was!)
For those of you in the heat of sleep training, I wanted to post a few words to hopefully keep you trudging along toward your end goal.
This last week we have done a lot of traveling for Christmas festivities. Brayden (2.5) has had to miss a lot of naps. He only takes one a day, so missing one can have quite the impact. Today while driving home, my husband and I talked about what he is like when he misses a nap.
When he misses one nap once a week, he is a little cranky but overall okay. Not great, but okay.
When he misses several naps in a week, something interesting happens. He gets naughty. Our sweet boy who typically does what he is asked and told immediately and is so happy to comply and be a good boy stops caring what his parents ask him to do.
He does what he wants and seems happy to he doing it his own way. He doesn’t seem tired, he just seems disobedient and actually quite hyper.
We talked about how it isn’t fair to expect a child to be obedient when they are overly tired. Trust me when I say that your child isn’t going to want to nap any more as a toddler than he does as a baby.
Some kids like to nap, but I think those are few and far between. Children love to play and have a billion better things to do than sleep.
Train your child while he is young so that when he is older he has the skills and you have the authority.
You will be better able to teach him obedience and manners and cleanliness and ABCs, etc. if he is well-rested. I saw a dramatic difference this week. I saw what my life would be like if Brayden didn’t sleep. Train him to sleep! Stick it out! It is worth it and you will be so glad you did.
