[Fawn Diary] The Story of My Son Being Too Scared of Ghosts to Sleep

Yotsuma~!

Sorry for the usual late-night post, ugh 😭

It's finally, FINALLY over!!

The long Obon holiday, I mean...!

When people think of Japan's Obon holiday, a lot of families take extra paid leave around the three-day weekend for "Mountain Day" in August and turn it into a longer break.

In our house, daycare was closed for a full week, so our Obon break ended up running nine days, from August 10th to August 18th.

Of course there were days I still had to go into work no matter what, and my mom saved us by watching our son so we could get through it.

(Seriously, thank you, Baba. Baba = my mom. Grandma, from my son's point of view.)

Anyway, today's topic is "sleep" —

specifically, how my son's sleep schedule has gotten a little out of whack lately.

This is actually one of the few things I'm a bit particular about when it comes to parenting, haha.

Saying I have "particular ideas" about parenting probably makes me sound like a strict education-obsessed mom, but don't worry, it's really not like that at all — keep reading and you'll see, lol.

Human babies are born in this incredibly "can't do anything" state, right?

Meanwhile baby deer are up on their feet and walking within an hour of being born — they can walk straight over to their mom and nurse.

Human babies take about 9 months just to stand and about a year to walk. Newborns can't even crawl toward their mom. It's basically "I'll just cry until someone feeds me!" — total passive mode.

Evolutionarily speaking, if humans developed fully inside the womb, our skulls would be too big to be born at all, so being born underdeveloped is just how it has to work — I get that intellectually, but still...

it's honestly shocking how helpless newborns are.

Totally random tangent, but take a look at this if you're curious:

it's a comparison of the size ratio between a mother's pelvis and a baby's skull — chimpanzee, great ape, and human, left to right.

Humans clearly are not built to have an easy exit, lol.

(I was terrified before giving birth, but somehow it all worked out. Truly a mystery of nature...)

There's a wide range of things toddlers need to become independent in — eating, sleeping, using the toilet, getting dressed, and so on.

And the one thing you can actually start working on right from birth is...

sleep independence! That's literally it, lol.

Even before having a kid, I was already someone who liked her own space to sleep — I even sleep in a separate room from my husband, RedSoda.

So I did a lot of research into sleep training before my son was even born and put a lot of effort into it.

Every baby is different, but a lot of babies struggle with sleep independence in patterns like:

only falling asleep while being held,

or only falling asleep while drinking milk, that kind of thing.

There are actual professional infant sleep consultants out there, and I read through a bunch of their books and content, trying different approaches through trial and error...

And somehow, by around 3 months old, my son started sleeping through the night on his own.

No rocking or holding needed to get him down —

I could just put him in his crib, say "night night, see you tomorrow," and he'd fall asleep.

BUT! Now that he's two and a half...

sleep has suddenly gotten hard again 😭

I think there are probably two reasons:

1. His imagination has developed enough that he's suddenly become afraid of "ghosts."

1. He co-slept with us during our Obon trip.

Up until now, we'd always been able to borrow a crib wherever we stayed, so he and I could sleep completely separately without disturbing each other.

But now he's grown too big for a crib, and putting him in a regular single bed felt risky since he moves around so much in his sleep and could fall out...

so for this trip we ended up co-sleeping with him.

And ever since then, out of nowhere, he started constantly talking about "ghosts" — no idea where he even picked that up.

Since we got back from the trip, he's been:

crying "I'm scared of ghosts!"

and "I want to sleep next to Mommy!"

He keeps coming out of his room calling "Mommy!" over and over,

and once I leave his room he sneaks over and tries to climb into my bed on his own —

I honestly don't even know what to do with him at this point, lol.

I was surprised because up until now bedtime had never really been a struggle once he was in his room.

I'm sure this is just a phase, but I really hope it works itself out soon.

For now, what seems to reassure him is either:

"Daddy will defeat the ghosts!" or

"the magic spray" (aroma mist for his pillow) will "keep the ghosts away" —

but even with that it still takes over 30 minutes to get him settled.

Fingers crossed things get back on track soon.

So that turned into a pretty long ramble, but honestly, now that he's two and a half, he needs a lot less hands-on care than he used to, and daily life has gotten way easier compared to the newborn days!

He can feed himself,

put on and take off his own shoes and clothes, wash himself and his own hands...

At the end of the day all I can really do is watch and support him, but I really hope he keeps growing more independent bit by bit, haha.

There's still a long road ahead, but I'll keep at it steadily.

Well, this ended up turning into a parenting life update, but that'll be it for this week's diary!

See you all bright and early at next week's stream!

Otsuma~!