Sleepy Friday Funnies

Does your child ever put up a fight when it's time for bed?

Does it ever take you more than one try to get your toddler to stay put long enough to fall asleep?

Do you ever resort to bribery, manipulation or begging to get them to just hold still and be quiet so you can sleep, too?

Or is that like asking if your child ever poops?
Rhetorical question.

In the past three years, we've had a few amusingly tired moments with my first daughter that are worth sharing.


One night, we'd had an especially hard time getting her to calm down long enough to go to sleep. I put in the extra effort and sat in her room for a long time, hoping that would help her relax. I occasionally asked if she wanted to read a story, sing another song, have another hug, or anything that might help. She finally burst out in frustration, "I can't go to sleep!" My logical question was why not. She firmly reported that she didn't want to go to sleep. Well, what do you want to do?

"I want to play with my hair. Go away."

I left her room and never heard another peep all night.

We had a stretch of time when she was quite opposed to naps. She slept fine at night, but we had a bit of a battle every afternoon. I would put her to bed, she'd cry, I'd go back in, she'd cry again...you get the idea. Well, one day she finally seemed to pick up on the fact that I still won eventually no matter how long she cried.

This particular day, I closed the door and she began the usual routine of crying for me. I listened outside the door for just a moment and this is what I heard.

"Come back, Mom, come back! Come back! Mom!"

pause

"Oh, never mind. I'll just go to sleep."

And here's a short story that happened just today at lunch...

My two daughters were both eating lunch at the table when I heard the older one start singing to her younger sister. Her song was "go to sleep, go to sleep" in a very nice lullaby tune. Upon investigation, I discovered that she was trying to lull her sister to sleep so she could--can you guess?--steal her pickle and eat it herself. Ah, sleep can be good for so many things.

Do you have any funny sleep stories you would like to share? Leave us a comment!