Bedtime woes

New rock throwing grounds

The switch to our new house has gone very well in all aspects except for one...our dreaded sleep issues have returned. After being spoiled by several weeks of Caleb going to bed easily and sleeping through the night, we were once again faced with bedtime woes. The first few nights, Caleb woudl cry once we entered his room, tensing up with the anticipation of the bedtime routine. He didn't want to read books and he wanted to be put down in his crib even less. For 3 nights we sat with him for 3 hours, alternating shifts of patting and singing and trying not to loose patience as the exhaustion set in. Now that we have neighbours, I'm extremely conscious of Caleb crying for fear of keeping others up or worse yet, having someone think we are somehow torturing our child each night. So instead of opting to let him cry for 15 minutes, we stayed by his bedside desperately willing him to fall asleep. I was really feeling like Caleb's sleep issues were my biggest parenting failure. How did I ever let it get to this? I tried to consol myself by thinking that he had not only just moved into a new house, but also started daycare full time and switched to the toddler room - many changes for a young boy to take in all at once, but still I was feeling quite down about my parenting skills.

The next 3 nights Alan was away, so I had to face the battle on my own. I decided to take a new approach and try to make him feel safe and happy in his new room. I shamelessly enticed him into his room before bed by saying in an overly enthusiastic voice 'Let's have some chocolate in Caleb's new room!!'. He fell for it. We were in the room without tears. He then agreed, without much hesitation, to let me read a couple of new Dr. Seuss books I had picked up from Value Village earlier that day. Finally I asked if he was ready for bed. He said yes, followed by 'pat you' (since I often ask 'do you want me to pat you?' at bed time). So I patted away and quietly sang and magically, he fell asleep - after only about half an hour. A long time, yes, but a huge improvement from the previous nights 1.5 hours. The next night, it was the same (minus the chocolate bribery) and with no patting involved. After only 15 minutes, he was asleep and I only had to hold his hand through the crib slats. This seemed like a better option until I had to very, very slowly release each of my fingers from his grasp and then tiptoe ever so quietly out of the room so as not to wake him. Once I was out, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Last night was even better. Great time reading books, happily laid down and was asleep within minutes.

I think we are getting back on top of our sleeping dilemma...at least until we head home for Harvest this weekend...but I have 4 solid nights of sleep ahead of me before then AND I'm planning on pawning him off on the in-laws for a night or two while we're home!! If our sleep troubles reappear when we get home, I know we can get through it, as we always do, with patience, love and an emergency chocolate stash.

New cove we now call home