The sleep, it sucketh

If, during my child-free days, you had told me that I would once have a child who refused to sleep, I would have scoffed. With my genes? My kid would LOVE to sleep -- are you kidding?

If, during KB's early months, you had told me that he would still not be sleeping through the night at almost 3 years old, I would have laughed nervously and prayed that you were wrong.

If, now, you were to tell me that I will not have a good night's sleep again for the next 20 years or so, I will give a resigned sigh and sadly agree with you.

KB has always, always been on the low end of the 'recommended' sleep times for newborns, infants, toddlers, and now preschoolers. And honestly, it does not seem to bother him. Occasionally he seems a little cranky, and I can chalk that up to his lack of sleep the night before. But for the most part, he survives, and thrives, on less sleep than what the sleep experts say he needs.

Certainly, he gets by on less sleep than *I* think he needs...or that I need, for that matter.

Probably the most frustrating thing about KB's sleep is how inconsistent it is from night to night.

There are nights he sleeps for 10 hours with nary a peep.

There are nights he almost sleeps through, but squidges here and there and puts himself back to sleep with no intervention on our parts.

There are nights he wakes up 5 times in an hour, asking for a drink of water, or covers, or to pee pee in the potty. Or all of the above.

Then there are the nights, like last night, that he cries and cries to come to our bed. And at this point, we are so beaten down, so exhausted, that we give in. And then, like last night, we all get an extremely crappy night's sleep.

Sometimes KB sleeps very restfully with us. Most times, not. Last night he thrashed about and kept waking up, rousing us in the process. At 5:30, he wanted to pee in the potty, then he wanted to go back to his own bed. For the next hour, he talked to himself in his bed. At 6:30, he decided he was ready to come back to our bed. But of course, he was done with sleeping by then.

At this point, I don't know what to do. Just suck it up, I guess. I don't see how sleep training or sleep coaching would work at this point. We need somebody who isn't running on empty to help us; we are too exhausted to follow through and to be consistent with any sleep training method. I need a Sleep Training Super-Nanny.

Many, many friends told me that I would get used to the fragmented sleep. I never have. It's been almost 3 years and I still can't get used to it.

S had been letting me sleep in many mornings, but the crappy sleep is starting to get to him too. This morning he mumbled that he feels like he needs to take a day off work just to catch up on sleep. I don't blame him. I feel the same way.

Please, just let #2 sleep. I honestly can't handle another bad sleeper.