ZZzzzz's

Ohmigosh... it's been SO cold here lately. And it's making me so sleeeepy all day long! The fact that I have practically camped out in front of my fireplace for the past week may or may not be contributing to the sleepiness.... The content of today's post is really about Jackson and his sleep though.

While having Derek home was simply wonderful, it wrecked havoc on Jackson's sleeping habits. BIG TIME. We were out of schedule, he was way over stimulated. Night-time and nap-time were horrendous feats for the first couple of days (He'd be up 6 or 7 times a night and he would cry so much he'd vomit!). I sought advice from friends who've dealt with deployments/homecomings and toddlers. I even emailed a fellow blogger that I've never even met. Desperation!

It basically ended up that I did all of the bedtime/naptime stuff, trying to keep it as normal as possible... and really, the only way for Jackson to get any sleep at all was to rock him completely asleep and put him down. every. single. time. It was time consuming and frustrating (I mean, didn't we jump this hurdle back when he was like, six months old?!... oh yeah, that was before he could climb out of his crib and open doors!), but I just couldn't bear to let him just cry it out. I feel so sorry for the little guy for all of the big things going on/about to happen in his life.

Because Jackson can successfully (and does) climb out of his crib, we introduced his toddler bed before Derek left. It doesn't have anything to do with the baby coming soon since she doesn't even have a room of her own for the crib to go! The father-in-law is actually coming over to take down the crib and we're (he is) moving it to the basement.

We didn't make the switch right away. I continued to rock him and pulled out the tricks used to sleep train little infants- put him down almost asleep, but still awake so he can learn to fall asleep in the crib. Progressively moving further away from his crib while I sang him songs until I was eventually out of the room. I may have given him a cup of milk a few times (gasp) in bed with him a time or two. He was even bribed with tic-tacs. I always make a BIG deal when he falls asleep on his own, without crawling out of his crib. His sleeping habits are improving.

We talked about his big boy bed at times and he explored a little bit. I checked out Big Boy Bed books from the library. And a few days ago he actually asked to sleep in his big boy bed. He's done okay with the transition. I've been sitting with him until he falls asleep each night. The first night he stayed in it all night. Last night he came to sleep with me for a little bit.

I am really considering my options (as if I should try a cry-it-out method or to work with slow progress getting him to go to sleep on his own). But I feel like he's dealing with so much that he deserves to be babied a little bit in this. Of course, my only fear is that it still takes an hour for bedtime once the baby comes and I simply can't offer that! I'm going back and forth....

But for reals... Jackson is in a big boy bed. Why is he growing up so fast?!