Nathan

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Daniel

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Regression

A good friend of mine once told me that there are three things most parents lie about: 1) How soon their children sleep through the night, 2) When their children are potty trained, and 3) At what age their children read.

Well, let me tell you the absolute truth: Nathan, my wonderful, ridiculously cute, fun, hilarious, son, did not go to bed alone and sleep through the night until he was 17-months old. No, not seven. SEVENTEEN. After Nathan became mobile, I couldn't really rock him to sleep. He just wouldn't let me. So then, we tried putting him in bed, soothing him when he cried, and finally (sometimes after 3 hours) I would just lie down with him until we both fell asleep.

We went on vacation this past summer, and putting Nathan to bed every night was an exhausting endeavor. He just couldn't relax to fall asleep. And even after he had been out for 2 hours or so, we couldn't move him to the portable crib. Then we got home ... and MAGIC happened. The night we arrived home, we began our routine of trying to lie him down by himself in the crib... and it worked. He fell asleep in just a few minutes. That was at the beginning of July, and the majority of nights, it's been that easy. It's the heaven that all of those people who claim their children have slept through the night since they were four minutes old must feel.

So then ... we've had a couple bumps in the road. But, mostly, awesome. Until last week. It all started on Christmas Eve when we stayed out way too late. We got home and put Nathan straight down (he'd been asleep in the car) at 11:00. He woke up at 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, and 6:00 for good. It was awful. Christmas night, he would not go to sleep and stayed up until at least 11:00. The next few nights were more of the same. Last night was it! I'd had it! You'd feel better if you just went to sleep! But, no. Nathan screamed for 2 hours and could not be comforted unless we picked him up. It was 10:00 and I was just about to go to bed anyway, so I brought him to bed with me. The Targo put him back to bed at midnight, but Nathan woke up again at 2:00.

Really? Maybe he's teething?

I'm totally afraid that we're back in this cycle ... just when I thought I could sleep through the night.

2 comments:

Swimming-duck said...

**HUGS** Yes, I do think many moms lie about those things...lol! I got teh book "The No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers & Preschoolers" My goal for the new year is to read it and crack down on Ayden's sleep. But Ayden spends most nights in our bed. We had a good period where he slept in his bed, but we were on it as far as a nighttime routine at that point. We've been lax and due to our own regression he's regressed. Bummer! But we're going to tackle it in the new year. I hope that your little guy gets back into his routine and decides to sleep for you.

AJU5's Mom said...

AJU5 had some sleep regressions too. Luckily she hasn't been consistently bad. So many little things can mess them up! Hopefully Nathan will get "squared away" here soon and allow you to sleep some more!