Carter Sleep Update

Back in July I wrote a post about some sleep struggles we were having with Carter, read it here. Since then we've had a solid 6 months of him doing wonderfully at bedtime. I carry him in to bed, lay him down, sing him No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, he takes a sip of water, I cover him up with blankets, and that's it. Harper goes to bed with him and we leave his door cracked but pulled shut with one of Ty's old undershirts so Harper won't push the door open and leave. He does great. The only time he ever leaves his room is if he needs to use the restroom. He knows that I only cover him up once. If he calls out for me to cover him up again I don't go back in so he hasn't even tried it in months. Bedtime has become wonderful. Elise has always been a dream at bedtime, I mean since she was old enough to have a bedtime, and now Carter is a little rock star. He goes to bed between 8 and 8:30 and wakes up in the morning around 7 or 7:30.

Our transition right now is naptime. He still took a solid 2 hour nap every day until his 4th birthday. Then he started skipping his nap every once in a while. I'd go in and lay with him and he'd legitimately try to sleep, no talking or messing around. He'd lay and suck his thumb while playing with my hair but just toss and turn because he couldn't sleep. After about an hour of "rest time" and trying to sleep I'd let him get up if he was still awake. Then around Christmas time he stopped napping altogether. Before if he'd skip a nap, it'd be once or twice a week. Now he's only napped a handful of times in a month's time. I'm fine with him not napping if he doesn't need it but we're in this transitional period where he still kind of needs it, but just can't fall asleep. Most days he gets super around 4-5:00 and is just hard to deal with, crying over the littlest thing and not being his sweet self. But then sometimes if he does nap he can't fall asleep at night. I'll sneak in to kiss him when we are heading to bed around 10 and he's still awake or laying in bed reading a book. I'm really proud of him for staying in his room and being quiet but I also hate for him to be awake that late at night. What we do for naptime is I lay with him in bed for 30 minutes. We just lay and rest, no talking. If he falls asleep, I leave once he's asleep, but that's only happened twice since we've started this. If he doesn't fall asleep I get up after 30 minutes and let him get up but stay in his room to play quietly. He typically chooses to read for a little bit. Then he sings songs and plays. He likes Harper to be in there with him so I shut the door and I ask him to play in there until I come to get him. Normally I go get him after 30 minutes, sometimes longer. That makes it a bit hard to get posts done as I just have 30 minutes of uninterrupted time in the afternoon, so there will be more days without posts than there used to be.

I also want to document some other interesting tidbits about his sleep. I've found he occasionally talks in his sleep. Most of the time he'll be calling out for me or yelling, "Up please," and when I get into his room I realize he is still asleep. He has a zebra blanket that I normally use when I lay with him. He likes it to be spread out at the opening of his bed at bedtime to "keep mice out." He's also been having a lot of bad dreams at night. He'll tell me about them in the morning. One of the most memorable was a dream he had where all of our skin fell off our bodies and we were walking around with our bones showing. He was so upset about it and asked me multiple times if our skin could ever fall off. He even confirmed my answer with Ty when he got home. He has told me that when he has a bad dream he moves over to lay closer to Harper. I'm so glad he has her to make him feel safe when he's scared at night. I've been impressed that he doesn't come into our room. We've always let him come into our room if he has a bad dream because I remember how terrible it was as a kid to wake up from a bad dream and how safe it felt getting into bed with my parents. I still have bad dreams and appreciate the comfort of waking up to Ty next to me when that happens. I can't imagine ever taking that comfort away from him, but he hasn't needed it, thanks to Harper.

Sleeping with Harper, he must've had a bad dream because he'd rolled over right by her.