Sleep training: Night #2

So our first night transitioning Jackson into his new bed and his new room was not an overwhelming success, but frankly, I didn't expect much less.  I decided to keep what little momentum we had going, as the second night seemed more promising for a variety of reasons.  1) A 10:30 bedtime the previous night ensured more tired boys 2) waking the boys up from their naps to attend a birthday party ensured more tired boys. 3) Spending three hours swimming at said birthday party ensured more tired boys.  Sure enough, the boys were exhausted and the actual falling asleep portion of the night was fairly painless.  By 8:30, they looked like this:

The pain came later, beginning at 1 am when I heard little pitter patter interrupted my (apparently extremely light) sleep.  I assumed it was Brady entering, but it was actually my younger son who found his way into his parents room and predictably, wanted to climb in bed with us.  Sticking to my goal of breaking this habit, I took him back to the bed and tried to lie down with him.  Only I was the only one lying down.  He was sitting up in the bed crying while pitifully chanting "Big bed, big bed" through his tears.  He even had gestures to go along with his pleas as he stretched out his arms to show me how big the bed was that he wanted to sleep in.  Eventually (two minutes?), he gave up, tipped over on me and fell asleep almost immediately.  I shimmied out from underneath him and went back to bed.  Fast forward 20 minutes and the footsteps are back.  Its Groundhogs Day and we're back in his room with the tears, the pleas, the gestures... and eventual surrender.  Meanwhile, Brady is now sleeping on the top bunk, since he moved at 10:30 pm when Eric and I heard him whining in the hallway saying he was scared (sleepwalking?) and told us he wanted to sleep on the top.  I go back to my bed and within five minutes, footsteps are back.  This time it is Brady, who is completely unclothed.

"What are you doing?" I asked.  "I'm naked because I'm wet," he answered.  Which, of course, means that I peed through my diaper.

So I walk back into Brady's room and tell him to put on some different PJ's.  The light from the hallway was apparently enough to wake up a restless Jackson, who sat up in bed and wondered what was going on.  My sanity was saved when he actually listened when I told him to lie back down. 

Pause to say that Eric has not stirred through any of this.  At one point, I had to laugh when I realized that three humans and a fetus were awake at the same time (the baby was doing flips in the 1 o'clock hour), and none of those humans was my husband.  He remained clueless until 8 am.

But back to the story, Brady didn't want to go back to the top bunk, but wanted to sleep in our room, on the floor next to our bed.  I didn't put another diaper on him, thinking that after a 1:45 whiz, he'd be fine until morning.  And I made a mental note to remind him to go when he woke up next, which I knew would be at approximately 5:08.  I swear, he has some type of mental clock that goes off nearly to the minute each morning.  Sure enough, he woke up just after 5 and asked me to scratch his back.  Our bed is just high enough and I am just pregnant enough that at 5 am after an unrestful night, this feels like an incredibly difficult task.  Thankfully, he didn't ask me to sing because I've done the scratch/sing combo in the middle of the night and it took every ounce of physical and inner strength to complete the task.

About 15 minutes later, in comes Jackson and since the sun is rising, I allow him to jump into bed with me, where I'm groped and prodded as he tries to get back to sleep.  At 5:45, I look down and Brady has no pants on.  I ask if he needs to go to the bathroom, fearing the answer that would follow which is "no, but my pants were wet."

Then I cried and wondered how in the world I am going to bring a new baby into this madness.

Ok, not really.  I actually fell back asleep and things were just peachy in the morning.  I'm soldiering on with this new commitment to transition Jackson out of his crib and out of our bed, but I'm not thrilled about it.  And while I don't think Eric's thought process in opening this door went too deep, isn't it ironic that for the next 10 days, I will be on my own as Eric spends days and nights at basketball camp?

Perhaps I'm not giving him enough credit in his thoughtfulness over this issue.  Let's just say if he wasn't experiencing his own personal hell for the next two weeks (sleeping in the dorm, managing 800 campers and their parents, etc.), then my irritation over the whole ordeal might be a few notches higher.  Instead, I will pray that the third night is a charm.

In other words, pray for a miracle.