All I had to do was tuck him in tight!

Some of you are aware of Sam's sleeping issues that started about the time Joe started his job in Illinois and Sam and I were still at home in Muscatine. He had been sleeping pretty well through the night, but then started waking up each night at least once. I did my own psychoanalysis of my son and decided he was having attachment issues. I figured he must be reacting to Joe being gone by wanting to make sure that I hadn't left him, even if that meant waking in the middle of the night to see if I was still there. So, I went in his room any time he cried for me. I thought it would be over once we were all in the same place again.

However, after we moved Sam and I continued our 2am soirees. Most of the time it just involved a brief back and forth of "Mommy?" "Yes." "Mommy?" "You are fine. Go back to sleep." "OK." Not really too involved, so I kept it up. Plus, I didn't really feel like making him cry it out.....because this kid can take "crying it out" to the extreme. The night I cut off his midnight cup of juice (something I really should never have allowed in the first place, but it got us through the transition from crib to big bed that came WAY too early) he screamed bloody murder for an hour and a half, barely taking time for a breath. To me, going in for a 2am 5 minute chat got me back to sleep much faster than trying to break him of his current habit. Juice would rot his teeth, but making sure his mom was in the house wasn't going to cause any long term damage. Plus, I felt slightly guilty that it was our moving that made him do it in the first place.

Fast forward to last week when he stayed at Joe's parents' for a few nights. The little bugger slept all night long without a peep. I was happy for Cindi and Dave that they didn't end up with a child screaming for his mommy like I had predicted, but a little torked that my darling son could somehow keep it all together for them and not for me. Then it hit me - at their house he was zipped into a sleeping bag, which kept him from his usual egg-beater style of sleeping. At home he can often be found sideways or upside down in his bed, and I have even found him under his bed asleep. Maybe he just wakes himself up as he moves all over, and then decides that since he is awake he might as well drag me into his room to say hi.

So, the past 2 nights at home I have tucked him in TIGHT to try to recreate his sleeping bag environment. And it has worked, so far. I wake up at 2am and hear nothing. My mom's theory with sleep issues is that it only takes 3 nights to break a habit, so we are hoping to make it through tonight.

To think, all I had to do was tuck him in.