When it's sleepytime up North...

Last night I attempted to put The Boy in his crib while he was still awake. He protested. And I let him. For WAY longer than either Musical Daddy or I would normally tolerate.

It just wasn't worth it and he still ended up in our bed last night from bedtime to wake time.

Tonight I decided that I'd actually do it right and do bedtime-things, in keeping with the whole concept of a bedtime routine. 8:00 was a bath and teeth-brushing, followed by a book and a long nursing in the living room. Then we read a short book and a few poems out of a poetry book. I put on his favorite album and put him in the crib. Again, he protested.

A lot.

But I was prepared--I brought the computer in (can't exactly read a book in the dark) and sat with him, occasionally holding his hand. He didn't scream the whole time--sometimes he just sulked, and other times he pressed the button on his aquarium soother which, unfortunately, is rather low on batteries. But it did start the music and the fish display, which transfixed him for awhile.

All told, it took close to forty-five minutes to get him from the initial crib entry to asleep. And at the end I picked him up, put him down on his back, and he was holding my arm for awhile. He actually fell asleep without his thumb in his mouth either.

Hopefully we can make this 8:30 in bed thing a habit for The Boy. Preferably without all the screaming because I just can't take it. But, here are Musical Daddy's posts from June when we initially got The Boy back into the crib. You know, before the whole cancer thing. It's so strange, and it seems like ages ago, that our biggest concern in life was getting our son to sleep in his own crib and then sleep through the night reasonably. Not to mention rather haunting, because after the first night was when we discovered the tumor.

Day 1
Day 2

I don't think that either Musical Daddy or I do such a great job with our own sleep habits. Sometimes it can't be helped--if my stomach bothers me, which it used to do a lot more often than it does now, I can't sleep. More specifically, I can't lie down, so the easy chair is really the spot for me. Sometimes we just do dumb stuff like staying up too late. Sometimes we really have too much stuff to do and can't go to bed until it's done. I'm hoping that with The Boy having some sort of bedtime routine, I'll be able to a better job for myself of calming down before bed and, more importantly, going to bed earlier because I'll have to get up earlier in order to get The Boy ready to leave with Musical Daddy. Last schoolyear, all I had to do was get myself ready and the boys would usually go right back to sleep!

Anyhow, since I forgot to hit the "post" button, I can now say that it's been 45 minutes, the iPod is almost done with the Max Q albums, and The Boy is still sleeping.