A Heinous Injustice

My Solomon hit the 18 month mark a few weeks back.  He's growing and developing in every way imaginable!  He's a spunky (read: a disciplining challenge), independent, joyful, interactive, book-loving, dancing, rough-housing toddler. 

The Heinous Injustice, you ask?  He STILL wakes up in the middle of the night.  And I'm certain it's my fault.

Thankfully, he doesn't wake up EVERY night.  Whew.  And despite the occasional teething or sickness episode his sleeping habits were lovely between 6-14 months. 

But now he's up once a night 2-4 times a week.  For this nap-loving narcoleptic mom that's almost more than I can handle.  It's not like we're up for a long period of time.  Just long enough for him to suck back his sippy cup of milk while we lay on the couch together.

I'm pretty sure the problem with this boy's restless nights is that he's a milk addict and not taking in enough regular food during the day.  This week I cut him off (almost) completely from his sippy cup of milk in hopes that the milk-absence would force him to eat more solid food.  That seemed to help him eat a bit more than usual at mealtimes but still not as much as I expected.  I've also been feeding him a snack before bed in an attempt to fill up his toddler tummy.

The other complication in the Solomon sleep issue is that he shares a room with his older brother, Clive.  So, while I'm a 100% believer in the crying-it-out method my stubborn Solly can really wail and often wakes up my sweet sleeping Clive.  And then I have two boys to soothe back to sleep.  Said soothing sometimes translates as Clive crawling into bed with us.  Which means I end up sleeping on the couch since I don't enjoy being kicked or have my knees used as a pillow. 

All told, I'm not getting as much sleep as I'd like.  :(

HELP!  What else should I try?

Solomon's coffee consumption may or may not be linked to his sleepless nights.

Sleeping dilemma

Surprisingly, our current sleeping dilemma has nothing to do with the almost 9 month old baby in our family.  Nope, it's our rambunctious three year old that's causing the trouble.

Here's the scene.  Bedtime is announced, Matt proceeds to take Chloe and Clive upstairs.  Usual bedtime rituals ensue including an oftimes very long story-reading with Matt.  When it's lights out (usually 8 p.m.) Clive often stalls and gets out of bed multiple times receiving the necessary discipline for doing so. 

Sometimes the whole thing borders on ridiculous.  Tonight it was 9:30 before everything was finally quiet upstairs.  Nine-thirty!  That's WAY too late a bedtime for the under 5 set.

[I take that back. It's past 9:30 now and Clive is still crying and whining.  I went to get Matt involved so I can finish this blog post and get to sleep myself!]

Anyways, that's not even our worst problem with sleeping.  The worst problem is when Clive wakes up in the middle of the night from a *bad dream* -- a phrase he quickly picked up from his older sister.  We then either bring him into bed with us or I go down to sleep with Clive on the living room couch.

I know, I know both of those are very bad solutions.  But when it's 3 a.m. and I'm desperate for sleep and even more desperate to keep the sleeping baby asleep, I've made poor decisions. 

What should we do?  I suppose the best answer is to take a hard-line with Clive and just keep putting him back to bed when he wakes up.  Any suggestions for making this go smoothly and maximizing sleep for us all?

How can he sleep like that?!?

We recently upgraded all the kids to bigger beds. Solomon went to the crib, Clive to a twin sized bed, and Chloe to a full sized bed in her OWN room. Her room is pink and girly. She's already possesive of it and trying to keep her brother out. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen until adolescence?

All things considered Clive is doing great with the new set up. He's always been a thrashing moving type of sleeper so the bed rails are a MUST for his safety. Even with the rails, which cover almost the entire length of his bed, he's already fallen out of bed once.

And with his new found freedom we certainly have our staying-in-bed battles. He's a completely different beast than Chloe in this regard.

I knew we had it too easy with Chloe. Oddly enough, Chloe used to stay in bed and then call for me to get her up! It was as though she didn't realize she could get out on her own. Since she was our first child, I assumed that was the norm. (Please don't laugh too hard at my naivete.)

Somehow, I never tire of going in late at night to peek in on the kids while they sleep. Part of me wants to make sure they're safe. But a bigger part of my heart loves to see them peaceful and innocent while they slumber.

And with Clive I enjoy going in and discovering what crazy new sleeping position he's gotten himself into! Ah to be able to sleep that soundly!

Is my wacky boy the only kiddo who sleeps like a contortionist?

Sleeping arrangements

Now that Chloe has reached the ripe old age of 4 she's consistently not napping. Sigh. This is one milestone I'm NOT excited about.

Even though she doesn't nap much lately we still enforce an afternoon quiet time. And after an hour of quiet time she's free to play.

By 7:00 p.m. Chloe is obviously ready for bed. Unfortunately, with all our new schooling routines I don't always get her in bed promptly at 7. As this photo so accurately depicts she was exhausted beyond belief tonight. Or maybe she was trying to keep the light out of her eyes?

Whatever the odd 4-year-old-logic involved, this photo of Chloe sacked out was too cute not to share. Makes me sleepy just looking at her! :)

What weird crazy ways have your kiddos fallen asleep?

Sharing a room experiment

Tonight our family embarks upon a big transition. Tonight Chloe and Clive are sharing a room for the first time.

Though our small home does indeed have three bedrooms making it possible for Chloe and Clive to have separate rooms, things get shuffled around when overnight guests arrive. And guests will be arriving shortly! My in-laws are coming this Saturday for their annual 2-3 week stay.

Usually Clive gets moved to our room or vice versa but that does NOT go well for anyone. Clive's old enough now to know we're present in the room and that disrupts both his sleep and ours. And this mama needs her sleep!

So, the siblings are in the same room tonight. The new roomies talked, laughed, and sang until 10 p.m. tonight (WAY past their bedtimes). Other than that all has gone smoothly.

Any tips for us as we continue on this new room-sharing venture?

A good night's sleep

Sleep training is working great with little Clive! His sleep patterns still aren't consistent every day but he's a much happier guy now that he's well rested. What's floored me the most about Dr. Weissbluth's sleep training methods (see details in my previous post) is the concept that sleep begets sleep. The more rest Clive gets the more he wants to sleep! That seems so illogical to me.

As I continue to read Dr. Weissbluth's book, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, I'm becoming staunchly convinced of the importance of sleep to overall health. Not just in children either. Of course in children, we can see the effects of sleep (or lack thereof) more clearly than in adults. Seems to me that a lot of wired and cranky kids are simply chronically overtired. We've all witnessed it - the screaming or naughty child in the grocery store whose parents are shopping at 10 at night. C'mon, put that poor kiddo to bed!

I am floored at how much this baby of mine sleeps! He's still not sleeping all the way through the night but he's made huge strides in that area. Last night he went to bed at 7:45 and slept until 2:15. After a BIG feeding he slept until 8 this morning. I couldn't believe how light it was when he first roused me from slumber. I can't tell you how luxurious it felt to have such big chunks of sleep! Ahhhhhhhhhh. And it would have been even better if I would have gotten myself to bed earlier. But alas I was fighting with a new baking project (details in a future post) and I was unwilling to yield despite all evidences that the pastry wasn't turning out.

All in all, we're on the right track now for sleeping. The light is at the end of the tunnel! Rejoice with me!