There is a dirty little secret that I'm sure every parent shares, but most refuse to acknowledge. I can't blame parents, really. This secret doesn't make me feel very good as a person, and it certainly makes me feel horrible as a mother. But here it is... sometimes, I dislike my children. I love them, of course, but I don't always like them.
That little admission is the dirty truth about parenting. We create these perfect little beings, and watch them grow with amazement! But there are certain stages, certain periods of their lives, that make us not like them very much, despite the fact that our hearts still swell with love for them.
Currently, this period of dislike is aimed towards my oldest daughter, usually between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Nighttime, for those of you still able to sleep during this timeframe. My sweet, sensitive, little Gracie has decided for whatever ungodly three-year-old reason that she doesn't like to sleep. My Gracie, who has slept through the night since the day we brought her home from the hospital, has turned into my biggest sleeping nightmare and has made it very difficult for me to like her lately.
Sleeplessness is something all parents expect their children to inflict on them. It comes with the territory of being a parent. Babies cannot sleep through the night because they need to be held, and fed, and rocked, and sang to. But let me tell you, there is a significant difference between being awaken by a screaming three-month-old, and a screaming three-year-old!
When Gracie first started this nightime screaming stage, I was worried that she was having night terrors, or was being attacked by wild animals. Neither of those scenarios proved to be true. Turns out, as she tells me, that she just doesn't want to sleep. So she screams. It doesn't start as screaming. It starts as "Mama?" "Mammma?" "Maaaammmmmaaaaaa!!!" At this point in time, I check in with her, after being awoken from a dead sleep of course. She tells me, "I don't want to sleep." Although I want to reply, "I don't really give a shit, get your ass back to sleep," I usually answer pretty calmly, tell her why she cannot wake us up in the middle of the night, and give her a couple of options. She can either (a) go back to sleep, (b) read a book (which she keeps by her bed), (c) play with her stuffed animals, or (d) sing a song until she's tired again. For 2 1/2 years, these options have worked wonderfully for us. Not anymore. She says okay, agrees to go back to sleep, and I shuffle my fat, pregnant ass back upstairs to bed. On the verge of sleeping again, Gracie again starts yelling and I repeat the above, still maintaining my calm. After being awoken (although that can't be right, because I haven't had time to fall back asleep yet) for the 4th time in 2 1/2 hours, I have lost my calm. I stomp down the stairs, spewing profanities inside my head, and the yelling starts. It is not pretty. I do not like this child. I do not want this child in my house right now. I wish this child were old enough to threaten with something meaningful, like grounding, or not seeing her friends, or a beating. But she is not old enough. And because we only watch TV on the weekends, I can't even threaten her with that! But we do have a sticker chart. So, in my most angry voice, I declare "You will not be getting a sticker on your sticker chart today!" Three weeks ago, that made her stop. Now it makes her say "I don't want a sticker anyway." Well... fuck. Now what?
I know this is a stage. I know she will outgrow it and will eventually start sleeping again, like she has done for the past three years. And for those of you who are tempted to let the following words slip off your tongues: "I guess it's payback for her being such a good sleeper when she was a baby," I say, screw you! A screaming infant is not the same thing as a screaming toddler. Toddlers are louder, more stubborn, and have the ability to spend the entire night screaming if that's what they decide they want to do. They can awaken the entire house. You cannot reason with them, you cannot threaten them, and you cannot beat them into submission. All you can do is try to keep calm, and when that fails (which it will), you can yell until you're both crying, and still nothing will be accomplished.
In the morning, when it's finally time to get up, and I am functioning on less than 3 hours sleep, I still feel angry and hateful at that child. But when I open the door to wake her (because she finally fell asleep around 5:30 a.m. - which, for the record, is too late for me to go back to bed since I have to be up at 5:40 a.m.), as much as I disliked her a minute before, she says, "Good morning mommy. Can I have a good morning kiss?" and the dislike starts to fade. I refuse her good morning kiss, because I'm bitter like that, but then she hugs me and asks again, and she gets one. We both feel better. We talk about her behaviour the night before, and she seems just as appalled by it as I was. "I can't act like that mommy, that's not fair to you or to Daddy, or to Ella, or to the new baby." I tell her, "Mommy and the baby need their sleep, Gracie. I don't like being kept awake all night." She hugs me and says, "I'm sorry about that, mommy. Tonight I wont do that, okay?" And I believe her. I feel better, and I like her again. She is still pretty cute. And although I'm slugging my way through the day, carrying around 20 extra pounds on legs that can barely carry me this pregnancy, feeling exhausted and in so much pain, I can reason with myself that this too wil pass. She will not be screaming her way through the night forever. She will eventually begin sleeping again. And the guilt from not liking my daughter very much, the guilt that makes me cry when I'm sitting on the couch at 4:00 a.m. just wishing she would stop and silently cursing her in my head... well, that guilt doesn't feel nearly as overwhelming once the sun is shining. It's okay to not like her once in a while. I know there will be days when she doesn't like me very much. I have a feeling there were many days when my own mother felt the same way about me. I realize that although I may not like my daughter for those 6 hours at night, there are 24 hours a day when I do truly love her, and there will be many, many years to prove that to her. Well... there will be, if she starts sleeping again and I allow her to make it to her fourth birthday. These terrible threes are something else... but that's a whole nother story!!
When Gracie first started this nightime screaming stage, I was worried that she was having night terrors, or was being attacked by wild animals. Neither of those scenarios proved to be true. Turns out, as she tells me, that she just doesn't want to sleep. So she screams. It doesn't start as screaming. It starts as "Mama?" "Mammma?" "Maaaammmmmaaaaaa!!!" At this point in time, I check in with her, after being awoken from a dead sleep of course. She tells me, "I don't want to sleep." Although I want to reply, "I don't really give a shit, get your ass back to sleep," I usually answer pretty calmly, tell her why she cannot wake us up in the middle of the night, and give her a couple of options. She can either (a) go back to sleep, (b) read a book (which she keeps by her bed), (c) play with her stuffed animals, or (d) sing a song until she's tired again. For 2 1/2 years, these options have worked wonderfully for us. Not anymore. She says okay, agrees to go back to sleep, and I shuffle my fat, pregnant ass back upstairs to bed. On the verge of sleeping again, Gracie again starts yelling and I repeat the above, still maintaining my calm. After being awoken (although that can't be right, because I haven't had time to fall back asleep yet) for the 4th time in 2 1/2 hours, I have lost my calm. I stomp down the stairs, spewing profanities inside my head, and the yelling starts. It is not pretty. I do not like this child. I do not want this child in my house right now. I wish this child were old enough to threaten with something meaningful, like grounding, or not seeing her friends, or a beating. But she is not old enough. And because we only watch TV on the weekends, I can't even threaten her with that! But we do have a sticker chart. So, in my most angry voice, I declare "You will not be getting a sticker on your sticker chart today!" Three weeks ago, that made her stop. Now it makes her say "I don't want a sticker anyway." Well... fuck. Now what?
I know this is a stage. I know she will outgrow it and will eventually start sleeping again, like she has done for the past three years. And for those of you who are tempted to let the following words slip off your tongues: "I guess it's payback for her being such a good sleeper when she was a baby," I say, screw you! A screaming infant is not the same thing as a screaming toddler. Toddlers are louder, more stubborn, and have the ability to spend the entire night screaming if that's what they decide they want to do. They can awaken the entire house. You cannot reason with them, you cannot threaten them, and you cannot beat them into submission. All you can do is try to keep calm, and when that fails (which it will), you can yell until you're both crying, and still nothing will be accomplished.
In the morning, when it's finally time to get up, and I am functioning on less than 3 hours sleep, I still feel angry and hateful at that child. But when I open the door to wake her (because she finally fell asleep around 5:30 a.m. - which, for the record, is too late for me to go back to bed since I have to be up at 5:40 a.m.), as much as I disliked her a minute before, she says, "Good morning mommy. Can I have a good morning kiss?" and the dislike starts to fade. I refuse her good morning kiss, because I'm bitter like that, but then she hugs me and asks again, and she gets one. We both feel better. We talk about her behaviour the night before, and she seems just as appalled by it as I was. "I can't act like that mommy, that's not fair to you or to Daddy, or to Ella, or to the new baby." I tell her, "Mommy and the baby need their sleep, Gracie. I don't like being kept awake all night." She hugs me and says, "I'm sorry about that, mommy. Tonight I wont do that, okay?" And I believe her. I feel better, and I like her again. She is still pretty cute. And although I'm slugging my way through the day, carrying around 20 extra pounds on legs that can barely carry me this pregnancy, feeling exhausted and in so much pain, I can reason with myself that this too wil pass. She will not be screaming her way through the night forever. She will eventually begin sleeping again. And the guilt from not liking my daughter very much, the guilt that makes me cry when I'm sitting on the couch at 4:00 a.m. just wishing she would stop and silently cursing her in my head... well, that guilt doesn't feel nearly as overwhelming once the sun is shining. It's okay to not like her once in a while. I know there will be days when she doesn't like me very much. I have a feeling there were many days when my own mother felt the same way about me. I realize that although I may not like my daughter for those 6 hours at night, there are 24 hours a day when I do truly love her, and there will be many, many years to prove that to her. Well... there will be, if she starts sleeping again and I allow her to make it to her fourth birthday. These terrible threes are something else... but that's a whole nother story!!
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