Monday, September 12, 2011

Miracle Occurs: Child Sleeps

We've been fighting with Iain for months. The subject of our woe: bedtime.

Like every other kid in the history of mankind, Iain does not agree it's time for bed. Ever. Midnight? Too early!

When he was a baby (like, really a baby) we read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It worked. At five months, Iain slept through the night and went down easy. In my arrogance, I read through the toddler sections (I couldn't imagine we'd ever get there), then gave the book away. Oops.

But when Charles said, "Maybe we should move up his bedtime," I remembered a critical passage. Weissbluth says that sometimes when parents complain that a toddler won't go to sleep he advises they move the bedtime up. That is: put that kid to bed earlier. Aha!

We also agreed, recently, to a campaign to abandon the board book. I recall listening to The Lord of the Rings around 5 or 6. If we're to achieve that level of listening, we need to start NOW. So I purged Iain's board books yesterday and last night Charles embarked on a read-a-palooza.

He started at about 715 with The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. By the 453rd hat (or so), Iain was asleep. ASLEEP! At 725!! And aside from a not very important episode of crawling into our bed to kick us (at 430am), he stayed asleep all night.

So tonight I put Day Two of Charles' plan into action.
  • 645 - bathtime
  • 700 - 3 Dr. Seuss stories (long ones)
  • 715 - Beatrix Potter ("The Tale of Tom Kitten," which is all about the riveting subject of getting your clothes dirty)
  • 725 - sleep. Seriously. Blissful, zonked-out, land of nod sleep.
I hardly know what to do with myself.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Oh good! Hopefully this will become easier as the weeks wear on and he won't be coming into your bed at 4:30 am.