Play-Learn-Grow-Repeat

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
So… bedtime with Andrew continues to be a struggle. If you can actually get him to sleep at a decent hour, it’s nothing short of a miracle. And this kid and I have RADICALLY different definitions of the term “decent.” He seems to think somewhere in the ballpark of 11:00 is an appropriate bedtime. I think that’s past MY bedtime!

Even when we can get him to sleep, he has that nasty little habit of sneaking into our bed. Andrew has learned that he can’t climb in on my side without waking me up (and landing him back into his room). So he curls up on Hubby’s side of the bed. Or lies at the foot of the bed. Or sometimes crawls up the middle so he doesn’t risk waking either of us.

It’s kind of a game for him. “How can I get myself into bed without getting into trouble or waking anyone up.” (Fun game, right?)

But he’s now falling asleep in his own room. He doesn’t even fight us about going into his room now. (Though he is still staying up to insane hours). Last night, he even stayed in his bed all night without coming into our room.

I’m typing this with one hand while knocking on wood with the other, but hopefully we’ve finally turned the corner with this bedtime stuff…

Hopefully.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Bedtime is interesting in our house.  There are nights that Andrew wants to put on his cowboy hat and dance around to music from cars (Life is a Highway and Real Gone are the main requests) before he’s willing to think about bed.  Or he wants to hide a million times from the daddy monster who is coming to tickle him.  Like I said, we have some interesting bedtime rituals.

Andrew has started getting up in the middle of the night and wandering into our room.  He somehow has figured out how to escape from bed, open his door and open ours. He’s pretty quiet about it, but it’s pretty freaky to wake up out of a dead sleep to see two huge eyes staring out at you from the other side of the bed.  The other night it scared me so badly I started screaming, which of course, made Andrew start bawling his eyes out, and it took us both the better part of an hour to get calm down enough to get back to sleep.

I was telling my friend about this and she nodded in the “been there, done that” kind of way.  Then she said, “You need a bed fairy.”  Never having heard of one of those before, I asked what it was and where I could get one. “I created her.  My daughter sometimes still does the same thing.  So I created Bella the Bed Fairy.  If Taylor (who is now 4) stays in her own bed all night long, Bella comes to visit and leaves her presents.”  The presents were whatever she could pick up cheaply – silly putty, stickers, a pen, ANYTHING to keep her kid in bed.

So I got home from work last night and told Andrew that I had received a visit from Bob the Bed Fairy. (Terribly creative name, I know.  But I figured he likes Bob the Builder.  He’d probably like Bob the Bed Fairy.)  I went on to explain that Bob heard how Andrew didn’t like to stay in bed at night and that he promised to come and leave Andrew a present if he stayed in bed all night.  Andrew put one hand on his hip and said, “Mommy.  What you talkin’ ‘bout?”

My guy’s a hard sell on some things… So then I told him that his girlfriend Taylor gets visits from Bob’s friend Bella if SHE stays in bed all night.  That got Andrew.  “I don’t want cars, mommy.  Can Bob bring me books?” he asked.   SURE sweetheart.  Bob can bring all kinds of things.

This morning, Andrew came into our room around 7, looking upset.  “Mommy.  Bob the Bed Fairy didn’t leave present.”  (What can I say? He got up before I could sneak into his room.)  So I quickly ran in, slipped something under his pillow and asked Andrew if he had checked under his pillows.  He threw his toys on the ground and excitedly climbed up onto his bed, throwing the pillows to the ground.  “SILLY BANDS?  BOB GIVE ME SILLY BANDS! I WANT A BOOK!”

Oops.  Guess we have to stock up on some books… but if that’s what it takes, Bob can leave Andrew many, many books and we can all get some sleep!

My fellow blogger, “Monday Mom,” and I both have children who fear the dark.  Jack is frightened at night as well. He must have his night and dresser light on when he goes to bed.  If it isn’t bright enough, a ghost will come out of his closet and get him.

I remember as a child I had a fear of the dark, too. In fact, I think I still do when I’m home alone at times. I Googled this issue to see how other parents handle this or what the pros have studied.  I learned that these fears are a healthily developing imagination and growing knowledge that the world does not revolve around them.

One of the best things to help treat this issue is to have a good lighthearted chat with your child. I have had many chats with Jack about this, and it’s usually long after the bedtime process begins. I don’t want to dismiss his fears in any way, but want to get the point across that no ghosts live in our house. Most nights it’s an hour evolution getting Jack to sleep. If he doesn’t fall asleep on his own while we are reading books, storytelling, singing, or me rubbing his back, I know it’s going to be a long night. Having a newborn in the house to care for already has me sleep deprived, so finding the patience gets a little challenging.

Another point the article made was playtime during the day while using their imagination can sometimes backfire since those “characters” can fuel inventions of demons during the night.  To me, that makes perfect sense.  For example, Jack loves to play with his trains and create different problems for them.  The Diesel engines are the bad guys and seem to cause a lot of problems and heartaches with the other trains.  When Jack doesn’t like someone or something he calls them a Diesel 10 which is the scary train. Perhaps, the diesel engine is one of the contributing factors to his fears.

All of these fears have started over the last few weeks, specifically, when baby Tate arrived.  I don’t know if this is Jack’s way of getting extra attention, one on one, or if he really has these fears cooped up in his head at night.  Maybe it’s a little of both, but all we can really do as parents is comfort them with the reassurance of safety and hope that will help their fears disappear.

I’m tired. I actually can’t remember my last full night of sleep. It probably came sometime about three years ago, before I got so big while pregnant with Andrew that I could no longer sleep comfortably or make it through the night without a sharp jab to the ribs around 2 AM.

Before he was born, Andrew’s most active time was between 1-2 in the morning. Not exactly ideal. I would try to tell him, even back then, that 2AM was not play time. He would roll over and give me a quick poke to the ribs, which would leave me imagining him turning his back and crossing his arms across his chest in protest.

Andrew still isn’t a big fan of sleep. He doesn’t want to miss anything. Bedtime is a process. One that involves Andrew trying to wiggle out of bed and us trying to keep him inside. He’s masterful at coming up with excuses not to go to sleep.

“Mommy, need water.” A newer one is “Daddy, need tissue! Have boogers.” (I still don’t know where he learned that one.) And most recently, heard last night, “Pee pee potty, not in diaper.” (Now, Andrew has never actually USED the potty – but how can you refuse taking him to the bathroom if he’s telling you that he needs to go?)

Once he finally passes out, he rarely stays asleep, usually getting up at least twice in the middle of the night and always at 2. It wouldn’t be that bad if he would just play quietly in his room. But he wants to be with us and cries hysterically.

It’s hard to listen to. No one likes to hear their kid cry. I was talking to one of my co-workers tonight about it. He told me that his son is SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD and STILL gets up every night. The guy’s wife still goes into their son’s room every night to check on him when he wakes up.

That scares me. I thought that kids figure this stuff out eventually… That one wonderful day, hopefully not too far off, that Andrew will just start sleeping through the night. I don’t want to think that we’re creating a pattern that will last until he goes away to college!

I know that the things we do now help to form who our kids are in the future. But that’s just one habit I don’t want to foster. Is the answer really just letting him cry himself back to sleep? Is this something he’ll figure out on his own?

I’m not sure. But if anyone out there has any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

Bedtime has never been easy. He fights sleep until he literally can’t keep his eyes open anymore. It’s like he’s afraid if he conks out, even for a minute, he’s going to miss something.

Once the little guy mercifully passes out, he never stays asleep. He gets up 2, 3, sometimes 4 times a night. The doctor finally told us that we had to let him cry so he would learn to put himself back to sleep.

That was hard – particularly when he would start sobbing and calling out for his mommy. But we followed doctor’s orders. So we didn’t think much of it last week when he got up around 11 and started crying.

Except then we heard a tremendous THUMP over the baby monitor, followed by more howling. Hubby and I vaulted off the couch and raced up the stairs. As we reached the little guy’s room, he was opening his bedroom door!

Thinking it had to be a fluke, the next night we again put him back in the crib. A mere five minutes later, we heard the telltale BUMP of his feet hitting the floor. By the time we reached his room, he was sitting in the corner, playing with his toys, smiling broadly at his escape act.

So we can’t put the little guy back in his crib. We have been trying to get him a toddler bed, but it seems the entire world had the same idea. EVERYTHING is on back order until November. And in the meantime, we have him sleeping on his mattress on the floor.

I use the term sleeping loosely – because every 3 hours he is waking up and toddling into our room. Sometimes he throws open the door screaming “MOMMY! DADDY!” causing instant paranoia that the house is burning down or some other imagined tragedy in our sleep-induced haze. Other times, he creeps silently over to the bed and just stares at us until we open our eyes, disturbed by the eerie feeling that we were being watched.

No matter what we try, this little guy is not staying in his room. I figure we can’t be alone in this, so I’d love to hear what worked for you!