Sleeping arrangements

While Dutch is a great sleeper (sleeping through the night since 6 weeks!!) he is absolutely the noisiest sleeper you've ever heard. He grunts, groans, snorts and squeals all night long. Now that he can roll, he has also added squirming to his repertoire of  night time antics. (Several times each night he rolls himself into a position that he can't get out of, so, naturally, he screams like he's caught on fire. I have learned to keep my cool, untangle him from himself and he is immediately back to sleep.)

I also am married to a very noisy sleeper. He also grunts, groans, snores and will often sleep talk and laugh without waking himself up.

When we brought Dutch home from the hospital, our intention was to keep him in the bassinet next to our bed, just as we had with Clementine. Two hours into our first night and I could see this wasn't going to work. Dutch was waking up Cam and vice versa. No one was getting any sleep.

Being the loving, doting wife that I am, I decided that Dutch had to find somewhere else to sleep...and I would go with him. Fortunately, we have the world's most comfortable bed in Dutch's room and I sleep there each night, often co-sleeping with the pipsqueak. This allows Cam to get some rest so he can work in the morning.

Around the same time that Dutch came home, Clementine started having a really difficult time sleeping alone. She's not afraid of the dark or fearful of monsters under the bed, she says she just doesn't want to sleep alone. Her summer bed time (8:00) was getting more and more prolonged as she kept herself awake, begging for someone to bring her something (glasses of water, a certain doll or toy, paper to write a story, flashlights, etc.). Sometimes she would still be up at my bedtime (11:00)! We were so desperate for awhile there that we finally caved, craving any kind of sleep we could get. So, Clementine slept in the master bedroom with Cam while I slept in the nursery with the baby. Not the ideal sleeping arrangements.

Finally, we came up with a plan to support Clementine and get her back in her own room. We came up with a sticker chart that said after 20 sleeps in her own room, without getting out of bed or crying on the stairs for us, we would take her to the water slides. Honestly, the water slides were going to happen this summer anyhow, but we needed some kind of incentive for her. And this did the trick. She certainly wasn't laying right down and going to sleep at 8:00 but she wasn't howling on the staircase anymore, either. She gathered all the stuff she could possibly need during the night before bedtime and stayed in her room, playing if her eyes just wouldn't close. We are really proud of her.

As for Dutch, I see myself in that room for awhile, if only for the comfort of that bed!