Bedtime Blues

Lately you have been struggling with sleeping through the night. Some days you'll do great, but most nights you wake up screaming for Daddy begging him to "Get you outta here." Last night was probably the worst night we've ever had with you. You tossed and turned, screamed, and cried for over an hour. Daddy and I were trying to let you "cry yourself back to sleep" but there's only so much one can take. So daddy brought you into the living room to sleep with him on the couch. Still you didn't do very well, and even Jen Jen said you were really tired today.

So daddy and I thought we need to make a change. We decided that you need a much better bedtime routine every night and knowing you weren't going to be very happy about it, we wanted to do it before you got big enough to climb out of your crib. Lately you have been trying to get your leg up and you have been getting pretty close. So we thought, what better time than the present. Our new routine was going to consist of: a nice bath, massage, jammies, brush your teeth, read a few stories in your room and then put you to bed awake so you could fall asleep on your own. You never do that so we thought that might be part of the problem.

Bath, check! Massage, check! Jammies backwards, check! Teeth brushed, check! Stories - a little difficult. Because we don't normally relax and read you a story before bedtime, you wanted to do what you always do and pull them all out and be a little wild. So we struggled with that a little. Next came...putting you to bed awake. We knew this was not going to go over very well. And we were right! The minute I put you down you started crying, screaming, kicking, everything. It was really heart breaking. So Daddy and I left the room after giving you a good night kiss and we watched you on the monitor. You were NOT happy at all. After about 15 minutes of screaming and crying, you started to try to get you leg up again, and wouldn't you know it.... You climbed right out of your crib!! You didn't fall either, you gracefully straddled the crib, whipped your leg around and slid down the front. Daddy and I were amazed as we watched you quietly walk right out of your room and into the living room. We pretended to be asleep just to see what you would do and you just quietly stood there for a minute until you climbed up on my lap.
As hard as it was, I took you right back and laid you down. Immediately you started to climb back up, this time you got stuck, so daddy went in and got you down. He had to lay in there to keep pushing your foot down every time you tried to climb up. Here is some video of you trying to escape while daddy is pushing you back in...

After 35 minutes, you were finally asleep. Hopefully you will sleep well tonight and not wake up around 2 like you have been. I love you french fry. I'm sorry that you don't like to sleep in your bed. We'll work on it, I promise. Love you. Sweet dreams.