We, the parents of infants and toddlers, do hereby petition you, God, as creator of Earth and director of the “way things are”, for more sleep on behalf of parental units.
The required patience for 3-year-olds who dilly-dally before going to bed seems to be a baseline standard. And a pre-requisite of infant feedings through, oh, 4-6 months, has been deemed excusable.
But 3 hours of subsequent crying-quiet-crying-quiet?
Wakings every 2 hours?
Perhaps we should appeal to the wisdom of Mother Mary, who knows our plight. Then again, she was probably a co-sleeper and will pull some “I slept in a barn, so as you climb back onto your Serta you can just get over it” card.
So we will resort to reason: if being asked to lovingly redirect our children instead of dragging them upside down in an effort to get out the door in the morning, please provide a standard of 5-6 subsequent, uninterrupted hours of slumber. When cleaning messes, doing 800 loads of laundry and picking up toys that have 512 pieces is part of the standard job description, we feel that REM provisions would be adequate.
And if you could hold off on the sinus infections until we’re sleeping through the night, that would go a long way to show a bit of good will.