I've finally come to the realization that a sleepless night happens very regularly with kids and that a full night's sleep is a luxury. I know that this seems like an obvious epiphany, but I think I was just in denial.
When Carter was only six weeks old, he started sleeping through the night. Even though the doctor tried to warn us that it would only be temporary, I prescribed to positive thinking and believed that it would last. After he started waking up during the night I made another naive mistake of just putting him in the bed with us. Although he was extremely content, I think this ultimately cost us five years off our lives due to sleep deprivation. It's impossible to get into REM sleep with constant wiggles, jabs, and poking.
Next, we decided to be "tough" and have him go to sleep in his own crib. Finally, after many nights of laying on the ground holding his hand through the crib rails, and trying to make a stealth escape, it worked - he was falling asleep on his own. Soon we knew the time we had come to put him in a "big-boy" bed. We tried to make the transition slowly. First we brought in the bed, next we showed him his new truck sheets, and amazingly enough he took an intense liking to his "new bed".
I love laying next to him in bed, snuggling into the covers, and reading him stories. After the stories are over, he usually asks me "Mama, lay down too?", and being the gullible one I am, I do lay down and he strokes my arm. Sometimes he'll ask for his flashlight which his "Bi-yah" has hidden in the racks of the top bunk.
Even though right now I know that, with a new baby coming and Carter sleeping in his own bed for an eight or nine hour stretch, it is my prime time to get ANY sleep for a LONG time, I can't resist snuggling in with him at night and catching a few hours of sleep next to him.
He looks so tiny in his new bed, but I know one day it will one day be too big for him. Sometimes I secretly hope he will wake up so I can sleep next to him in his new bed.
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