After we finally resorted to locking him in his room at bedtime last summer we had several months of good sleep. No, it's not inhumane. It helps him learn how to exercise self control. And it helps us not get furious.
Then just before the holidays last year he starting 'popping' again. Not at bedtime, since we were still keeping his door closed when he was putting himself to sleep. But this was now happening in the middle of the night. When we check on him before we go to bed we unlock his door and leave it cracked open. Which apparently became an invitation to come visit us at 2am. Or 3am. Or 5am. Or all of them.
Somehow we put up with this behavior for way too long. The holidays were busy...we didn't want to deal with middle of the night battles...we figured he'd outgrow it eventually. We had a lot of excuses.
Finally my husband took a trip out of town in February and I saw an opening. Since he was the one always getting up in the middle of the night to put our son back to bed, I decided this was an opportunity ripe for change.
And bribery.
So I busted out my party treasure chest full of two cent toys and told my child that he could pick a toy in the morning if he stayed in bed all night. And it worked. Well by the third night it was working.
And then we went back to square one after my husband got back. Not that it was his fault. But I had really been talking up the treasure chest when I was putting him down at night, and when my husband got back and put him to bed, which he often does, he wasn't building up the expectations quite so much. We were back to our nighttime visitor for a couple nights.
So I upped the ante. I wrapped up a bunch of little toys, some of them matchbox cars and others just junk toys, and I put them in a gift bag. I showed it to my son and told him he gets to pick a present out in the morning if he stays in bed all night. And I also set an alarm in his room and told him that he had to stay in bed until the music was playing. This last part didn't stick quite as well as the all night part. But not being woken up - at all - until 6:20am has it's benefits.
Voila. We were back to our peaceful nights.
Ah, what bliss. A full night of sleep.
And a pat on the back.
Although truth be told it took me another week before I could sleep past 5:30am which had become one of his more popular visiting hours.
The funny thing was that he didn't even like the presents after he picked them out in the morning. He'd open one up and whine about it. So then I let him pick one that was a car and he was a little happier. For a few mornings he picked out two toys, one a car and the other a trinket. And he'd complain every time. Even about the car. But we'd stick to the one he got and bring it with us downstairs. After his morning chocolate milk fix he'd warm up to it.
We only had to do this for about 4 or 5 days until he started forgetting about it. We brought the grab bag downstairs because I thought perhaps it was too dark in our room to see what he got and that's why he was complaining.
I was clearly giving him too much credit.
But moving things downstairs was the first step down in the process. Eventually we'd forget to pick one out and he wouldn't remind us.
Another pat on the back for us.
We were so proud of ourselves that we started to take on another challenge. I started leaving the door open a bit at bedtime. We did this when he was sharing a room with his cousin in Colorado and he did really well. So I transferred it home and it continued to go well.
Until this past week. He started his repetitive 'popping' again so we went to the 3 strikes rule. After 3 pop outs we would close the door and lock it. Most nights the threat was enough to keep him to only 2 tries.
Of course when I told this to our new 15 year old babysitter on her first night putting him to bed a week ago, she seemed okay with the process. But when push comes to shove she wasn't ready to be the bad guy. We came home at 10pm to find him still up, having challenged her for 2 hours of popping out of bed. And when we found him, he had a special surprise in store as he had each hand full of gumballs, as well as one in his mouth, and a blue smudged face. And no diaper. Which is still required for night time.
No, we didn't fire the babysitter. But we did offer a lot of education. The next babysitter bedtime went much more smoothly.
And then we hit daylight savings and we even have him sleeping past 7am in the morning.
Woo hoo!!!
And another pat on our backs.
Except just when we think we have all of our bases covered, our son has decided to level the playing field.
What's the one thing he can control when we've taken away all his other options?
That damned diaper.
Even though my husband and I have decided we aren't ready to take on the challenge of bedtime without diapers yet, our son doesn't feel the same way.
I thought it was strange that the sitter didn't put a diaper on him that night last week. When actually he had taken it off himself during all of his little shenanigans. And for the past few nights, he's decided that he's going to get up at some point and let us know that he wants it off. Last night he just took it off himself at 3am and then came in to tell us that he took it off.
You might think this is a great step forward toward getting rid of it all together. But we don't.
At 3am we really don't want to hear about the diaper. We just want it to be on his ass and we want said ass to be in his bed.
And we certainly do not want to be up at night taking him to the potty or changing sheets.
Now tonight I was back to offering him a present - to which he requested a car - if he slept in bed all night, and didn't take off his diaper.
I'm off to go find all those cars he's collected and strewn about the house. I need to wrap a few of them up for a morning "surprise".
What? He's just going to complain about them anyway.
If he's going to find a work-around, then I will too.
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