Keepin' It Real: Figthing sleep!

John has fought sleep since he was a newborn practically.  It is so much better now that I'm scared to even say those words, but we went through some serious rough patches where it took me FOREVER to get the boy to go to sleep.  I can remember when he was around 4 or 5 months old and I decided that it was time for him to cry it out, but everything I read said that at that age they shouldn't cry for more than 30 minutes or so but that infants rarely do.  Well John did.  Every last stinking second of the 30 minutes he screamed until I picked him up and rocked him...and bounced...and sang...and prayed... and he finally crashed.  We had moments like this for a long, long time where it would take us sooo long to get this boy to fall asleep.  It's funny that I can't remember exactly when that changed, but I think it was a little after his first birthday and all of a sudden he was SO great about bed time.  Just a bath, bedtime book, prayer, song, and he's ready to get in his crib and go to sleep.

Recently however I've noticed that he's starting to fight sleep again, but in a more sophisticated (and manipulative) way.  It started with his love of snuggling.  I think he knows that if he says he wants to snuggle that any adult's heart will melt and they are then like putty in his hands.  The snuggling is always requested somewhere other than his room. "Snuggle on couch mommy." "Snuggle in your room mommy."  He's no dummy.  He's not climbing in the rocker in his room and snuggling - that's only moving him closer to bed.  And now he's started finding the longest books that he can find in his room for his bedtime story.  No more board books! He's into 50 page Dr Seuss books all of sudden! I'm onto you John...  And my favorite.  He's started choosing night night songs that he can include people in; for example, "row, row, row John's boat," and then insists that I sing this song about every person that he knows or has ever heard of.  It will go on, and on, and on. "Row daddy's boat." "Row Callynn's boat." "Row Mickey Mouse's boat."  My darling little boy is smart I'm afraid.  Uh oh.

And because I asked him about snuggling on camera he said he didn't like it, but he did do this funny little dance so I thought I would share it anyway.



And my own dirty little secret...whenever I can't handle how old John is and feel like it's going to make me cry, I put him in footed pjs.  Tonight was one of those nights.

Much better.  Only babies can wear footed pjs right?!

Night night all.  Keep it real!