I have three kids... an older son, who is sitting home after his college closed for the year... and a 1st and 2nd grader, for whom I am now functioning as a teacher.
However, for the last 8 years, I've mostly functioned as a stay-at-home dad. My oldest youngest child is mildly Autistic and had significant infant acid reflux. I attempted to work from home at first, but I ended up spending 8 to 9 hours a day simply getting my acid-refluxy baby her food.
I broke down in tears of confusion, happiness, and relief when the local school system admitted my Autistic daughter at age 3 for full day school in a one-on-one session. And now she's back home... and I'm her teacher... and slightly disappointed at the school system for the apparently lack of basic knowledge in the curriculum... strange how that changed. I've come to realize that individual teachers are the important component, while the institution itself is broken beyond repair.
My youngest youngest child never slept... from birth until age 3, she woke every 2 hours. And then between 3 and 5 the nights got a little longer. But that was mostly due to finding the sweet spot of low room temperature, Marpac noise machine, and near complete darkness... God forbid someone three houses down the street sneezed in the night or the full moon was just barely lighting the floor or the room temperature rose above 64 degrees F!
In any case... I've been there... I know how it feels to be awakened in the middle of the night by a young child who I thought was/or should have been sleeping peacefully "by now" ...
After spending hundreds of hours reading about sleeping habits of toddlers, it's actually quite common to have a toddler regress in the number of contiguous sleeping time. I'd give advice, but that's never helpful...
--End odd stream of thoughts.
I've been through these times aswell with my little one. Many health issues at the start and so many sleepless nights. What always got me was just when I thought I had a handle on the new norm it changed again. Now nightmares and bed wetting seem to be the phase we have to get through.
Hope things improve for you. Your comment provoked me to reply.
For sure. My father was a teach for almost 60 years - the system is broken, great teachers are becoming like hens teeth.
Many do, I think that it is part of becoming a parent. Ours has food allergies and the last year or two has been good (comparatively) to the first year and a half - which was a nightmare.On top of that, the hospital screwed up parts of the post-birth treatment for my wife... fun times.
This time, I think it was mostly the fever that woke her up and then, the light in the room keeping her up. This far north, the light starts very early already.
Thanks for adding your comment here, it definitely helps to discuss these things - too often, the things that are important don't get talked about, while everything else gets discussed to death.