Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Sleep Issues

As I mentioned a while back, we are not doing well with sleep in our house these days. Calvin has gone from the most ideal sleeper, to a little nightmare. Every night we have to go into his room 3 or 4 times through the night, and sometimes every hour. We decided to try the tough love approach and let him cry it out. Unfortunately, Calvin has learned that if he throws his blankies out of the crib and then cries "want that, want that, want that, want that...." over and over again, we always give in. It's just too sad knowing he's up there alone in the dark sobbing, reaching for his blankets, and wishing we would come and rock him to sleep. Lately Andy's been the one going in. He has the magic touch. When I go in, he wants me to take him out. When Andy goes in, Calvin lets him rock him for a minute and then he'll reach for his crib. Most of the time we trade off throughout the night. Life is painful when Andy is out of town.

At about 4:30 every morning, we usually just give in and bring him into bed with us. The other day, I heard Calvin making fake snoring noises so I opened my eyes. His face was less than an inch away from mine, with his eyes scrunched tightly closed, pretending he was snoring. I'm assuming he was copying me as it seems to be an unfortunate side effect of pregnancy for me. It made me laugh. As opposed to the mornings where I'm trying to sleep with him in the bed next to me, and he sits and bounces on my face or stomach, drives his train over my head, kicks me in the ribs, or throws blocks at my head.

Today we walked into his playroom about 20 minutes before his usual nap time, and this is what we found:
He looked so peaceful, it was hard to be upset that his parents are beyond exhausted, yet he manages to curl up wherever he likes and just doze off.

2 comments:

Smith Clan said...

On some days, my children are the cutest & the most keepable & lovable when they are asleep. What a sweet boy you have! Adorable! Audrey was awake for 3 hours in the middle of the night one day this week. I feel your pain (a little).
These comments are so meaningful & productive. I hope you treasure them as much as your sweet baby Calvin (who will soon be a big brother).

Renee' said...

Bless your heart Emma. I sympathize w/you. Christopher, our 4 year old, was a terrible sleeper. At his worst, he was up 7 times in one night. We gave into the sleeping in bed w/mommy and daddy too. It's hard, especially when you are pregnant. Good luck w/this too.