Sleep changes

With the anticipation of Baby #3, some changes are in the works, most having to do with sleeping in our household.  Mission One: Get Brady to sleep in his own bed (or at least, stop him from sleeping in ours).  Eric was getting sick of kicked in the kidneys in the middle of the night and knowing that a baby will be sleeping next to our bed in a few months, it seemed like a good idea to figure out a way to get at least one of our kids to sleep in his own bed.

So we incentivized the process and told Brady he would get a new pair of shoes if he stayed out of our bed for five nights (don't tell Brady....the shoes were coming his way either way).  The good news: Brady went five days without getting in our bed.  The bad news: I went five days getting out of my bed many more times.  We gave Brady an option of sleeping in a made-up bed at the foot of our bed if he wanted to come to our room.  He took advantage of that.  So his typical routine would be to come in our room, wake me up and asked to be covered.  Then he'd wake up a few hours later, wanting to go back to his bed, and wanting me to take him there.  One night, I told him to walk back by himself and I'd meet him there.  I followed him a minute later and found him standing up in his room, staring at the wall like a creepy kid in a horror movie.

On night three, Brady woke up from his spot at the foot of our bed and told me he had peed.  Sure enough, his clothes were wet (despite the improbability of his diaper being on, and seemingly dry).  So I took him to his room to get changed and get back in his bed.  Then he asked for me to scratch his back and sing him a song.  As I did that, I felt something on his back... at first I thought it was a scab.  But after turning on the lights I realized it was actually a tick.  So Brady wasn't' sleeping alone after all.

Its been a total of about 10 days and only one night did he stay in his bed the whole night.  But what a great night that was!  And its getting better.  I smartened up and put his bed next to my side of the bed so I don't' have a actually get out of my bed to cover him up.

The other big change is his room.  Brady and Jackson will be sharing a room once Jackson is ready for a big boy bed. We are not there yet... I'm still enjoying the confines of the crib, even though he's not that confined since Jackson ends up in our bed each night.  Last week, we swapped Brady's old room for the guest room, which is much bigger.  I love the idea of the boys sharing a room... we will see how it works in practice.  And this room gives them plenty of room to play and grow.

 

I hope that they will grow to love it so much that they want to stay in there.... all night long.