A Good Night's Sleep

This morning I called a friend who I haven't talked to in a long time. She has three kids and they are all the same ages as mine. Two of them are the same gender (yes I'm avoiding the three letter "s" word so I don't get googled by freaky people). Anyway, she was telling me about her nighttime routine with their third who just turned three. Every night one of them sleeps in the 3 yr old's bed while the other sleeps with the 3 yr old in their queen bed. Every night. And he has a cool race car room with a race car bed!! Not good enough, I guess. It used to be that he would come in the room in the middle of the night and sleep with them. They decided they wanted more sleep so they just started the night off with their current sleep arrangements and everyone gets a full night's sleep.

It's amazing what we'll do for a full night's sleep. I remember when we had the same problem. To get Sam to sleep every night we sit outside his door. It started with laying in bed with him, which graduated to sitting by his bed, which then graduated to sitting outside his door. We felt we hit the jackpot then because we could read a magazine or book, and I especially enjoyed journaling during that time. In fact, I have a lot of documentation during this time because I was forced to take turns sitting outside his door. But this wasn't all...every night Sam would come in our room in the middle of the night. He would wake up from a bad dream or have night fears. He wouldn't want to go back to bed. We were too tired to fight the battle so we let him sleep on our floor (I could never sleep with an additional person in our bed). So, every night when he came in we would set get his pillow and blanket and make a bed for him on the floor. Every night. I would say all of this started when Sam was about 2 1/2 (he was in a toddler bed because Abby took the crib when she was born). This went on for 2 years!!! By then, Abby had caught on and was sleeping on the other side of our bed. Finally, we started using trains as rewards. If he slept in his own bed for 3 nights in a row, he would get a train. Then we lengthened it to 5 nights. He succeeded again. After that, his habit was broken.

Occasionally, he would still pop in after a bad dream. But it was no longer a nightly affair. Abby wasn't doing it long before she realized her bed was much more comfortable than our floor. She sat up early one morning and said, "I'm going back to my bed." We never saw her after that. Ever. She just made her own decision. Kids are all different!

Now I'm wondering what Ben will do. I know one thing...he's staying in that baby bed as long as I can milk it. It's great for getting good naps out of him. He takes a three hour nap! Mary, on the other hand, will probably climb out like Abby did and force us to put her in a bed. Until then, we are enjoying a good night's sleep.