Timmy the Terrible

I feel like I'm at a loss as to what to do with Timmy. This kid has no middle-ground. He is either really well-behaved, sweet, and charming or he is the exact opposite - words I don't ever want to use to describe my little boy.

When he's good he's a dream child. He plays well on his own, he uses manners, and he's friendly and sociable. He says clever and witty things and no one believes me that he can be an unholy terror.

Then there's how he's acted lately - nonstop whining, crying, yelling, spitting, arguing, interrupting, loud, and obnoxious. He's rude and sneaky. Tonight he cried over every little thing - he wanted Daddy to read a book, not Mommy, he didn't want to wear a bib, Natalie touched his toys. Normally I'd write it off as him being tired from not napping, but he took a good nap today.

Night time is terrible right now and I'm not much help. I feel so bad that I am useless at night, but pregnancy is exhausting and I physically sleep like the dead right now. When I'm not pregnant I have a much easier time getting up to help in the night and in the morning, but right now I feel paralyzed if I wake up in the night and I'm pretty much half-asleep trying to function.

Timmy has nights where he refuses to go to sleep. Thankfully it's not every night, but on the nights when he refuses it is such a pain because the first thing he does is climb into Natalie's crib and wake her up. We can usually get her to go right back to sleep, but if Timmy does this two or three times a night, it really messes both of their nights up.

Then, somewhere around very early morning, four or five, he gets up and climbs into bed with us. Some nights this isn't a big deal because he will either go right back to sleep or we can snuggle for a few minutes then tuck him back into his own bed with no issue - but the last few mornings have been hell. He comes into bed with us, tosses and turns, keeping us both up. We try to tuck him back into his bed, but instead he wakes Natalie up, either by talking very loudly or by climbing into the crib with her. We've tried gating him off and have a "fence" across his room, but he has figured out how to bypass that so it's rendered relatively useless.

So basically, we all get little to no sleep from about five til "morning." Well, I get more sleep than the others, but it's interrupted and not very peaceful. I am trying to be more helpful to Chris and am so grateful that he is the one that deals with this issue on a regular basis. I just wish we could all get a good night's sleep...even if it's just for one night.