You'll Still Love Me In the Morning...

One of the hardest obstacles I have come across, being a Mom, is trying to get my son to stay in bed at night. Right now he is 20mos. old and he doesn't wake up all the time, but he does on average two-three times a week sometimes. When I start hearing his cry through the monitor, my heart just sinks and I want to go in and get him so bad. But, from what I have learned from other Moms is that sometimes you just need to let them cry it out so they go back to sleep and don't get into the habit of waking up in the middle of the night. I remember thinking, "Man, it would be so nice to have a break from that". The kicker is that even if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he will still wake up early in the morning too. So going off of three hours of sleep or less wasn't cutting it.

When he was about 6 months - 17 months, my Mom was living with me and she got use to getting him all the time in the middle of the night. She said she couldn't stand to hear him cry. So he got use to her getting him up in the middle of the night and, at the time, was waking up every night in the middle of night. There was nothing wrong with him. He wasn't sick. I think he just got use to knowing my Mom would get him. If it's one thing I have learned this far, it's that kids are smart. They know things. It wasn't like I didn't want to get up with him, but I didn't want him to be accustomed to getting up every single night. So what did I do?..

There came a time where my Mom moved out. And while it was nice to have her there, I felt like it was time to try my own strategies as his mother. It's not that I never appreciated my Mom for helping me, but I had my own agenda on how I wanted to handle things and it was time I tried something else. As a single-mom and going to school full-time, I just didn't have the time or the energy to keep getting up with him in the middle of the night. I always have loads of homework and I absolutely love my son to death, but night time was/is my time to get what I have to do done.

So the first night my Mom was gone, I made him cry himself back to sleep. Probably one of the most gut-wrenching nights I have ever had. I couldn't study or concentrate on anything while I heard him cry. He cried for about a half hour and then fell back to sleep. What do you know? He slept through the rest of the night. At the time he was still in a crib (this was at about 17mos.) so I didn't have the obstacle of moving him to a big boy bed yet. He slept through the night for about another two months straight, with no problems. I knew I was going to have to switch him over to a big boy bed soon so those two months of no waking up in the middle of the night were bliss.

At first I saw no reason to switch him over to toddler bed because he wasn't climbing out of his crib or anything yet. Well I spoke too soon. Around 19 months, he was climbing out of his crib and even knew how to open up his door. This was a huge change because now was the time I had to make some more decisions. Getting out of his crib is one thing, but being able to open up his door is a little scary because I have 15 stairs going down in our hallway. Lucky for me the first time this happened, nothing bad happened. I knew I was going to have to do this eventually.

So I immediately went out and got him a toddler bed. It was time for him to grow up. I also bought a lock for the outside of his door because I just couldn't stand the fact that he could open it up and something bad could happen. This was the second big obstacle for me to overcome because now that he was no longer confined to a crib, he started to sit at the door and cry instead when he woke up in the middle of the night. So again, phase two of the middle of the night wakings. Not every night, but pretty often.

So that brings me to current days where he is now in a toddler bed and still wakes up during the night every so often. But I have still learned from the past and I am still learning today. When he wakes up now, I often try to make him cry himself back to sleep. But if he sits at the door and pounds on it - that's a little hard to ignore. So what I do now is, if he's crying at the door, I open it and pick him up and then lay him back in bed and tell him it's still night-night time. Yes, the fits can be nuts sometimes, but again, I don't want him to get back into the habit. I really don't agree with the co sleeping thing (everyone has there own opinions) so I always put him back in his own bed.

Currently, I am very happy for trying to handle the situation like I have. There is nothing wrong with trying to break your child of a bad habit. Even though his fits can be ten times worse (because he wants something when he wants it), it doesn't really bother me as much as it use to. And the one thing I think after putting him back to bed and he has a fit is..."You'll still love me in the morning..".