July 10, 2005 - sleep stories -
"Mom, it's bedtime!"
Has a sweeter sound ever touched my ears? I think not.
Hard on the heels of our discipline crackdown, Everett has taken to going to bed in his own bed like an absolute champ. For those of you who haven't been keeping up, Everett's been sleeping with us in our not-so-royal queen-sized bed pretty much since birth. He spent a few uncomfortable months in and out of his crib, but he was always much happier with us.
Well, after the Incident a few weeks ago (this was the one where Everett, Truman and I were bussing in the evening and...oh, I can't even write about it, it's too painful...it involved lots of screaming, running nearly a block away while an entire busful of tired people waited, and a temper tantrum on the bus floor) I've decided that it is high time he went to bed every night in his own bed. At first I thought it wouldn't work out - that he'd be down in our bed by 1 a.m.
But the first night I had a talk with him, explaining how he was a big boy, and big boys slept in their own beds, and wasn't that cool! And the next morning I woke up and he was still in his bed.
It hasn't been like that every night, but he's almost unfailingly been going to bed without crying and carrying on. We work together to clean up his toys; I ask if he wants anything to eat or drink; we go upstairs and brush his teeth; we read a book and he lies down. There's a bit of begging and pleading for more books and toys to bring to bed, but it's not frantic, and I tuck him in and leave him happy. And he just falls asleep. That's it. No begging or crying or telling me his diaper needs to be changed (minutes after changing the last one).
It almost makes me feel like A Good Mama. And it sure makes for a nice hour or two before his brother gets his place in the bed for the night... Ahh, the cycle begins again.
