How can 30 minutes of napping ruin an evening, you ask? I’ll tell you how.

I picked up my son from nursery today. A member of staff very apologetically told me she’d arrived back from her break to find him asleep—he’d only slept for 30 minutes.

It won’t do any harm, right? Wrong!

Later that evening, it’s edging towards my son’s bedtime, but I’m conscious of the nap he’d had, so I allow just a little more time before ushering him upstairs.

To my surprise, he gets ready reasonably well, without any meltdowns. Since dropping his nap, bedtime meltdowns have become a frequent visitor in our house.

When he’s ready for bed, we read two books together. I tuck him in for the night and return to my daughter, ready to put her to bed.

My daughter, however, is less willing.

“I’m not tired,” she protests.

But by delaying my son’s bedtime, I’ve inadvertently pushed hers back. To make matters worse, it’s a school night.

I wade through the barrage of complaints from my daughter, trying to encourage her towards getting ready for bed. Meanwhile, my son has decided he’s not tired either and would like a cuddle.

So I break away from getting my daughter ready for bed to go upstairs, give him a cuddle and put him back to bed.

Within a few minutes of returning downstairs, my daughter has not made any attempt to get ready for bed. She is lying moping on the floor, and my son is already out of bed again, standing at the gate at the top of the stairs.

You can see where I’m going with this, right?

After several more attempts to get my daughter ready, my son finally settles and stays in bed long enough for me to read two books to my daughter.

We’ve not quite progressed to chapter books yet, but we’re in that awkward stage where the books are getting longer and longer, and she still insists on having two books.

But that is for another post.

We’ve read our books, my daughter enjoyed a drink of warm milk—her bedtime favourite—and we’re finally able to brush her teeth and put her to bed.

It’s quiet when we reach the top of the stairs and open the gate, so I’m hopeful that my little boy has finally drifted off to sleep.

Fast forward five minutes and we creep into their bedroom and, lo and behold, my son is still wide awake and decides this is the perfect time to get out of bed again. So now I’m trying to usher my daughter to bed whilst simultaneously trying to keep my son in his.

If there was ever a moment I wished I could split myself in two, this would be it.

It took me a few minutes, but I was finally able to say good night to them both and leave the room.

Well, if I thought that was going to be that, I was deeply mistaken…

Bearing in mind that on a good night it takes at least an hour from when I take my son to bed at 6:45 pm to when my daughter settles.

So at 8:10 pm when my daughter was distraught that she hadn’t had a chance to tell me about her day—which is our favourite part of bedtime—I was torn over what to do.

In the end, I figured the longer I spent saying, “Sorry, we can’t do it now,” the longer the bedtime would take, so I caved and sat down to listen.

My son eagerly came to join in, so there we sat, each recounting our day for the next 10-15 minutes. I must admit, when my little boy, who’s only 2 1/2 years old, began telling us little snippets from his day at nursery, my heart started to melt. He had obviously taken in what we were talking about—and realised he could have his turn, too.

Everyone’s day had finally been recounted; the kids were both tucked up in bed again. They would surely go to sleep now, right? Wrong!

Insert exhausted face palm here.

It was now 8:50 pm, and I had already been back and forth several times—I was trying to explain to my little girl that if she tried hard to go to sleep, her brother would surely follow suit.

By this point I’m wound up tight, like a jack-in-the-box ready to pop. I know it’s really selfish of me—it wasn’t their fault they were struggling to sleep—but this was my time…

My time to sit down for a minute without hearing mum for the thousandth time.

My time to put the television on and watch an episode of something without feeling guilty or having someone require my attention every two minutes.

My time to just stop and pause the speeding train that is my life right now.

There’s no one else here to help me. No one else to say, “It’s ok, you stop for a moment, I’ll go settle them this time.”

It can be so frustrating… so exhausting… so lonely.

Reflections

So how do I reflect on this situation? How do I see this for what it is? How do I stop this from dragging me down?

The first way would be to look at the situation objectively. My son had a danger nap at nursery, which made bedtime a stressful nightmare. So I would start by reminding myself that this is not a normal occurrence.

They don’t normally allow him to nap. I’m still not quite sure how he managed it, but I wouldn’t put it past him to just take himself off with the other kids that nap and join in. He’s so cheeky.

So the fact that it’s not an everyday occurrence is a positive. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been through my fair share of sleepless nights and non-existent evenings. I solely took care of bedtimes and all the feedings for both of my kids through choosing to breastfeed, because I struggled so much to pump milk.

They usually sleep reasonably well. Only the odd wake-up if they’ve had a bad dream or if they’re poorly. Now that my son is in a toddler bed, I found it easier to just keep the gate off their bedroom door, so they’re free to wander through if they need me. It also ensures my daughter can get to the toilet if needed.

The second is to ensure it doesn’t happen again, so I’ve already left a message for the nursery, politely asking that they do not allow him to nap again. They’re usually so good at following the no nap rule, too.

I have since discovered that he was actually falling asleep at lunchtime, so their logic was to pop him down for a short nap to avoid him falling asleep later in the day. I can completely understand their logic; unfortunately, that just then made it harder for me to get him to sleep at a reasonable time.

And thirdly, this is what I did whilst writing this post. Simply writing it down. Getting the frustrated feelings out of my system. Channelling it in a way to offer a release from the pressure it held on me and then purposefully finding a way to reflect and see a huge stress in another light. Then maybe, in time, these stresses will slowly diminish their hold on me and, bit by bit, I will feel stronger and more able to cope.

And maybe, just maybe, someone reading this will feel a little stress ease, too.