The blue-eyed bandit has been waking up at night, EVERY night, for about a week. As such, his blue-eyed mama has become a bleary-eyed zombie. I am EXHAUSSSSSSSSS… oops … fell asleep typing. Seriously, I am crazy tired. When Sawyer wakes up at night, he is usually full-on “I just drank a Red Bull” wide awake. Which means there is no rocking him, reading him a book and/or going back to bed soon.
Ray suggested last weekend that maybe he was getting old enough that we should ignore him when he cries at night. (Yeah, that’ll teach him! )
Against my better judgment and my mama intuition of how Sawyer is wired, I tried this one night last week. Sawyer screamed and cried and shook the crib, and I held a pillow over my ears and desperately hoped he would stop. After crying for a long time, there was a moment of silence.
And then a thump.
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the nursery, I flew in a flash … oops, sorry. See? I’m so tired I’m slipping into verse.
The crying had resumed by this point, so I went in and picked Sawyer up ... off the floor, not out of his crib like usual. He didn’t seem hurt, just shaken up and scared. It almost daybreak, so after fussing at Ray for his bonehead idea, Houdini and I went downstairs and fell asleep on the couch.
The next night, there was no crying. Yet, at 2:30 a.m., I heard the pitter-patter of little feet down the hall. When he got close to our bedroom door, a little voice called out, “Mama, (where) ARE YOU???”
I wanted to laugh, but I put on my stern face and told him that it was bedtime and he needed to go back to bed. I read him a couple books, and he willingly went back to the crib.
The next morning, I knew I needed to up my game if I was going to beat him. I woke up early and listened for the first peep he made. I really DID spring out of bed then, and by the time I made it 20 feet down the hall, the little bugger had one leg cocked up over the side of the crib.
The escape artist got in one more rappelling session before we knew we had to make a change. He was getting good at it, too. Like good enough that he was landing on his feet without making a sound.
We discussed getting a crib tent. If you’re unfamiliar, you can buy a mesh dome that clips on the crib. In a perfect world, it keeps the family cat out and the roving toddler in. I found a couple on Craigslist and plotted my drive the next day to pick them up. But the more I thought about it, and after some ribbing from another mother, I decided we needed to just suck it up and bring on the “big boy bed.”
So that night, Ray took the front off our crib, which converts to a toddler bed and then a full-size bed. Sawyer was excited that he could now jump up on his bed, and throughout my dinner break, I really hyped getting to sleep in a big boy bed.
Ray got him to bed OK, but he woke up in the night and got me. I thought he was having trouble breathing, so I slathered some Vicks on his chest and turned on the vaporizer. He slept through the night.
Last night, the sitter had trouble getting him to stay in bed and Ray did too.
I got this text from Ray at 10:30 p.m.: We have to figure something out with bed... sawyer won't sleep and there is no way to contain him
And then this one: Now he is on couch with me watching Thomas
Sawyer had come all the way downstairs to find Ray.
He was asleep and all angelic looking when I got home. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. Too much caffeine to counteract the previous four nights of no sleep. About 3 a.m., I heard a thump. Only one little murmur followed, so I waited a couple minutes and went to check on him.
This is what I found:
Sawyer was snoozing on the floor. I did think about moving him back to the bed, but I was afraid A) he’d fall out again or B) he’d wake up. At that point, I wasn’t sure which was worse. So I covered him up and left him. And he slept three more hours.
Today, I went to Lowe’s to find the hardware to fix our baby gate. I thought he’d be more contained in the room and things would be better. Ha.
I got this text at 9:33 p.m.: He is not asleep... I think he is standing at gate screaming. Daaaa. Deeeee. Daaaa deeee
A few minutes later, I got a phone call at work from Ray. “Can you look up online what to do if a kid eats Vicks?”
Apparently my son thinks the sensible thing to do when left alone in a gated room at a bedtime that is not to your liking is to somehow reach the Vicks VapoRub and slather it all over yourself, your sheets, your pajamas and likely places yet to be discovered.
Ray said the smell about knocked him down. He cleaned up Sawyer and the bed and decided that most of the tub was used for smearing, not for eating. But he promised to call Poison Control just to be safe. (And now we’re even with one call to Poison Control apiece! Read Incident Two)
They said toddlers usually don’t eat much because it tastes bad and burns. I had to laugh when Ray called me back. Sawyer has always loved having Vicks rubbed on his chest, but the image of him grabbing the jar and having a head-to-toe rubdown is just funny. There’s no way around it. And it seems to be a hobby for him.
As you can see, it’s been a fun week at the Burton home. I’d better get to sleep. I’m afraid of what Sawyer has in store for us tomorrow.
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