The (Dreaded) Bedtime

2 years, 3 months old

I mentioned quickly in some of my 365 pictures that we've been having a rough go of bedtime lately. Barrett climbed out of his bed for the first time on Jan 2. (Happy New Year!) Joe and I woke about 3am to a kid screaming outside our bedroom door. (Surpise!) Prior to this, he hadn't really even tried to climb out. There were times playing in his room that he tries to climb IN but he's always been in love with his crib that he's never had issues with being in it. It is probably my fault that it happened because I forgot to turn on his monitor that night. His room is on the complete opposite side of the house as our bedroom so if he was screaming for any amount of time, we would not have heard him.

We had hopes that this would be a one time thing and he would go back to sleeping just fine in his crib. Hahahahaha. I honestly forgot about it when we did bedtime that next night….until he came strolling out of his room about 5 minutes after we put him to bed (without an ounce of fight, either). This night happened to be a Friday and Aunt Allyson and Aunt Rachel were spending the night at our place. Liz had came over to join us and we were all doing a puzzle (exciting Friday night, huh?). Of course, we all died laughing and B just thought it was hilarious. We do a quick goodnight and Joe takes him back into bed. I run to get the video monitor (seriously best thing ever) and grab my phone to video because I know there is no way Barrett is staying in there when he now has a crowd of fans waiting in the living room. I thought I uploaded the video to youtube but apparently, I just added it to Facebook. I can't get it off Facebook so it's lost forever. Here is a video of Barrett getting out of his crib the next day after his nap. It was his very last sleep in it.



Since then, we've had nothing but fights when it comes to sleep. Not counting his first 6 months, Barrett has always been a wonderful sleeper. He has pretty much never fought us. He loves his crib. It's not unlike him to ask to go to bed. He never wanted to be rocked. Would easily put himself to sleep. 6:30pm on the dot was our sweet spot. It was amazing. We had plenty of time at night to get things done. This is not how it is anymore.

I'm writing this purely for records keeping because (as every other phase) this too shall pass. Now, if this was happening earlier in his life, I'd be going all dictator on him and making him do what I wanted. A certain two year old does not give a crap about what I want. We tried to continue the 6:30 bedtime for a few nights. We spent 2 hours fighting him for a few weeks straight. Joe and I would put him in his bed (converted from crib to toddler bed) and he would get up and run before we could hardly get the door shut. We made sure he had every stuffed animal. Every book he would ever want. I gave him a sippy of water which I had never done before that. Nothing could keep him in that stupid thing. We would shut the door and stand outside it, waiting for him to open the door, only to pick him up and put him right back in. Rinse, repeat, 200 times. It's exhausting. We also locked him in for a while. That really pissed him off so he screamed, yelled and pounded on the door. I felt comfortable doing this since we have a video monitor and could see his every move. You can only take so much screaming though before you just give up. After about a week of just non-stop fights and 10pm bedtimes, we gave up. Barrett won.

So where are we now? Bedtime has been moved to about 8pm in the hopes that B will be asleep by 8:30. In a perfect world, we could make this 7:30 but honestly, it's so much better than 9:30-10:00. I thought I was going to go freaking mental at the 10pm bedtimes. The only way this works is if all 3 of us (yes, I can't believe this is where my life has gone) lays in the spare bed until he sleeps. It Suuuuuucks. I would be kicking my butt if I knew this was how things were going to go down. The kid is such a dictator that only one of us (Joe or me) can't do bedtime. It must be both of us while he lays in the middle. Sigh….

Thankfully, it's getting better. At first, it was an hour of him flopping around before he would succumb to sleep. Then it was 45 minutes and eventually 20-30 minutes or less. Wake up time is all over the place. Anywhere from 4-7am. When he wakes, it's almost impossible to get him to go back to bed. This morning, he came into our room at 5am and he flopped and screamed and tantrumed on our floor while Joe and I ignored him until 6:15. Because of this early wake up, I was able to adjust his nap from 10:30-12:15. This meant that he was ready for bed at 6:30!!! It took him 10 minutes to fall asleep tonight (and is the only reason I'm able to write this now). So obviously, we're getting there.

After the first week, I told myself to stop stressing about it and just do what I had to do. I don't want to fight him for 2 hours every night. If that means I have to lay next to him for a bit to get him to sleep, then so be it. This too shall pass (please, oh please). I actually hated laying next to him at first but now it's kind of nice. The 3 of us are together a lot but it's not that often that all of us are relaxed and can just be together. We're usually busy doing 3 things at once. Now, we sing songs and I can smell his hair as he drifts off to sleep.

I'm going to miss this...