wanted: eight hours of sleep

I can't say enough about my three year old son. He's gorgeous (green/hazel eyes framed by long, thick lashes), thoughtful ("No pee pee in bed, Mommy") and loves vegetables. His tantrums are fleeting and infrequent and he comes to an immediate stop any time he sees a car. There's virtually nothing to complain about. Except the sleep. Oh my hell, the sleep. My beautiful and well-behaved Bubba cannot seem to sleep past 5:30 a.m. When he was a newbie, it was all par for the course. I wasn't working so I grabbed a cat nap when I could and kept on going. When it was time to sleep train, I upped my coffee intake and stumbled around like a zombie for several weeks. You keep telling yourself it's a process and soon, very soon, you will return to the old days, the glorious days of eight hours of peaceful, uniterrupted sleep. Not so much. You can put Bubba down at seven thirty, or at ten, and he wakes up without fail at 5:30. When I meet other parents, I am compelled to ask them about their kids' sleeping patterns. Do they skip the naps and the kid sleeps longer? Do they put Benadryl or other drugs in their sippy cups? Some fool told me that all I had to do was skip the nap and Bubba would sleep for 12 hours straight. It seemed reasonable enough, but Bubba wasn't having any of it. Not only was he super-irritated when I finally put him down, he rose even earlier, 5:15, the next day. (I need to find the parent who told me that shit and shoot her.) Even though I've cut back my hours at work, I'm still a working mama, and mama needs more sleep. I've decided to start bringing Bubba into our bed when he wakes and just lay with him until a more decent hour (say 6:15). So far it's working. He looks up at the ceiling and rattles off his favorite foods, or tries to pull of my socks. Occasionally he will roll over to J and pop him playfully in the nose (pretty funny). This actually isn't so bad. I'm still tired but I'm not officially up, and I get some cuddle time with little Bubba. I'd love eight hours of sleep but for now, this will do just fine.