Bedtime

So bedtime has been quite rough lately.  Aiden went from going down anywhere between 6:30-7pm and waking up around 6am, occasionally waking up once at night.  It took us over a year to get there but he was a pretty awesome sleeper.  Last week changed it all.  Aiden started waking up about 7 to 9 times a night just screaming.  We would pick him up and he would fall right asleep.  Lay him down in the crib and he would stand up screaming again.  He would not nap in his crib either.  This kid had to be in the deepest sleep before you could lay him down in his crib and he would sleep.  Thankfully Adam was on fall break so we had some good tag teaming going on.  So by the end of the week we were pretty tired and he made it into bed with us ( I know, not good...but he needed sleep and we needed sleep).  He slept great on the pillow and had much more room to stretch around.  So on Monday we decided to take the front of his crib off and make it a toddler bed.

So night one.  Adam lays down with him to go to bed.  Aiden keeps reaching his hand over the side to make sure he is still there and he falls asleep.  This takes about ten minutes, not too bad.  Aiden rolled off the bed twice that night and woke himself up (we are talking maybe a 6inch roll off) and would go right back to sleep after we calmed him down (normally about a min or so).  So first night was a big success compared to how the previous week had been.

Night two.  Again Adam lays on the floor with him as he goes to bed to reassure him that he is in there.  He has to do this about 5 minutes.  We lay two pillows down on the floor at the open part of the bed (so if he rolls off, he rolls onto the pillows).  I go into check on him in right before I go to bed and he is snuggled up on the floor next to his pillows. He never woke himself up when he rolled out, yet just snuggled himself up with his blanket! Too Cute!  We decided to pick him up and lay him back in bed.  (Not our best move!)  It of course woke him up and took him about ten minutes to get back to sleep.  After that he woke up once around 4am and Adam we able to get him back to sleep pretty easily.

Night three.  Again Adam lays on the floor next to Aiden to help him fall asleep.  Aiden grabs his blanket and crawls down to sleep on daddys chest ( I know, too cute!), so Adam puts him back into bed.  A minute later Aiden crawls back down to lay on his chest, Adam tells him to go back to bed so Aiden crawls right back up to bed and falls asleep.  When we go into check on him at bedtime, Aiden again is on the floor, this time with his head on the pillow, snuggled up like a big boy! It was too cute and after the night before, we decided to leave him on the floor.  He woke up around 4am.  When Adam went in there he calmed down right away (he said it seemed like he was scared because he did not know where he was).  Aiden did not do so well after about 20 mins and would not fall asleep, so Adam gave in and brought him to bed.  Not a habit we want to get into!!!  This is only the 3rd time we have ever done it!

So our conclusion....The big boy bed has definitely made a big difference in his sleeping. I think since he is moving around so much he kept bumping into his crib and waking himself up.  Now we need to figure out if he just needs to move to a bigger bed so he has more room and he might sleep better!  Wish us luck on night four!