Lullaby, and Goodnight, Please Just Go To Sleep!

Look at these sweet sleeping children

Are they not precious?

2 weeks ago me and Will decided that it was finally time that our children learn to go to bed in their rooms. Cruel I know.

The problems we have with our bedtime routine all started when Taylor was 12 months old. I was still nursing Taylor to sleep at the time, and since I was already in my 2nd trimester with Liam, I decided that it was time to wean her from breastfeeding. We were afraid that this would be a hard transition for her. So to ease this transition, I would go in my bedroom when it was time for Taylor to go to sleep, and Will would sit in his recliner and cuddle with his little girl until she fell asleep. We thought this was so cute and easy at the time. She would fall asleep so quickly out there with Will, and then he would carry her to her bed and she would stay asleep. After a while of this, we realized that she was going to have a hard time learning to go to sleep on her own, but by this time, it was too late. We tried the whole, "just put her in her bed and let her cry it out" thing. But she would just get out of her bed and run to us...after about 30 minutes of death-curling screams. We would try to put her back in her bed, and she would do the same thing. Exahuasted, we would just give up and let her come out in the living room with us. We vowed that we would never let Liam do this. That we would not make this same mistake twice!

Well, guess what, we made the same mistake again. When Liam was 13 months old I was still nursing him to sleep at night, but he would usually get put down in his crib awake and would just go to sleep. When I stopped nursing him, I would still take him up to his room and rock him for a little bit and then put him in bed awake and he would go to sleep. Sometimes he cried for a few minutes, but mostly he would just go to sleep. By this time, Taylor was 2 1/2 and she was still just hanging out on the couch with us at night and falling asleep and then getting put in her bed.

After a few months of Liam getting put in his bed awake, he started doing a lot of screaming and carrying on when he got laid down. He decided that he was not a fan of this going to sleep on his own thing. And being the loving, exhausted parents we were, we just started letting him sit on the couch with us and fall asleep too. I think one of the main reasons this was easiest for us was because we were able to sit there too, and kinda just fall asleep on the couch before they went to sleep. And then at some point me and Will would wake up and take the kids to their bed and go to bed ourselves. I also had a lot of guilt for having the kids in daycare all day and not getting to see them as much because I was in school. So I enjoyed the cuddle time.

Over the past couple of months it has gotten really bad though. The kids would refuse to sit with Will at night (Taylor used to sit with Will and Liam would sit with me). So here I was having to try to cuddle with 2 kids at the same time and make sure that no one touched the other and that everybody had a blanket, unless they didn't want a blanket, and then I had to make sure that the blanket in no way touched them. It was exhausting. Liam would usually do an ok job of going to sleep out there, but if he wasn't tired, he wasn't going to sleep. And then Taylor, oh my little stubborn Taylor. Sometimes she would literally sit on the couch for HOURS just watching TV and not going to sleep. Even when we turned the TV off, she just didn't know what to do. She would just sit there in the dark and talk to herself. I would say on an average night we were all going to sleep somewhere around the 10:45 -11:00 mark. And then we all have to get up early and go to work/school. So we were all tired and all cranky and something had to change. We knew this was all our fault, but it was getting ridiculous and we needed to get our kids to go to sleep in their own beds.

So Mommy and Daddy came up with a plan! When we were working with Taylor to get her to stay dry at night we used a sticker chart with the promise of a new toy at the end and it worked very successfully. So we thought we would try the sticker chart again with both of them and get them to go to sleep in their beds.

Our lovely sticker charts

It has been a struggle, and some nights are better than others. But I think we are making good progress. Usually what happens now is that we will all get pajamas on, the kids will brush their teeth and use the potty, and then they will each go to their room and pick out a book to read. They are still boycotting Daddy right now, which is frustrating for both me and Will, but again, my kids are strong-willed and stubborn. So I usually go to Liam's room first and read him "Tiger Can't Sleep." He absolutely loves this book and we both almost know it by heart. After I read it to him then he likes to "read" it to me. Then he will lay in his bed with the light on and I promise him that I will be back if he will just lay there for a minute.

Next, I go to Taylor's room and read her a story. This usually takes a little longer because she picks out long stories and likes to ask lots of questions. After we finish her story, I cover her up and we say prayers together. Then she gives a bazillion hugs and kisses. She likes to go to sleep with her lamp on because she says that she is scared and I am ok with her little lamp being on. I promise her that I will be right back and ask her to stay in her bed and be quiet.

Then I go back to Liam's room and give him hugs and kisses and say prayers with him and turn off his light. He likes for me to lay in his floor (I usually lay really close to the door, not right next to him). It takes him about 10-15 minutes to go to sleep and then I am able to leave his room and shut his door. There have even been a couple of nights of this journey where he has asked me to get out of his room and shut the door. I was always happy to accomodate and he would actually go to sleep much quicker that way.

After Liam is asleep I go back to Taylor's room, remind her to be quiet, and then I sit at her door, facing out, and just sit until she goes to sleep. This is the most frustrating part of the night. Taylor just doesn't seem to get tired as quickly as the rest of us do. She will talk to herself in her bed, play with whatever doll or barbie she has decided to sleep with, or kick her feet against the wall. I am forever having to remind her to stop talking, stop playing, and stop kicking or I will leave her room. There have been a couple of nights where I told her that I was just too tired and that I was going to go on to bed and if she needed me that she knew where to find me. Both of those nights she has just ended up going to sleep after a little whining.

We are really ready to stop sitting in their rooms during this bedtime process, but it has been a big transition for us all, so for the first little bit I am ok with it. I am not quite sure why we decided to try to do this right as I am trying to finish up with school, but I think it is because it was just getting to be too much!

We usually start getting them into their pajamas at around 8:00-8:15 and then they are usually in their beds reading stories from 8:30-8:45. And then it usually takes them a good 30-45 minutes to get to sleep, sometimes a little longer. I am not sure if it takes everyone else in the world this long to get their kids to sleep, but this is a big improvement for us. We feel like if the kids are in bed before 10:00 then we have suceeded! I know as they get a little older it will be a little easier to just tell them to go to bed, but right now, this is the most exhausing part of parenting. Our kids have always slept so good, and they still do sleep really good, it is just the getting them to sleep part. Once they are asleep, they usually don't make a peep. Sometimes they will still wander into our bed at night, but it is not every night and is really not even that often.

I hope that we can continue to get better at bedtime as the weeks go on. I know we could all use more sleep! And with the next one, I really hope that we can

NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE AGAIN!!!!!

Sorry this post ended up being so long, I just really wanted to remember this time in our lives!