Until very recently, Henry needed someone to lay down with him, read several books, turn out the light, tell him a story, tell him another story, sing him a song, sacrifice a limb, perform an interpretive dance and then wait him out. Okay, so all but two of those things are accurate. But this was... Every. Night.
With Sullivan, we were determined to right our wrongs. Until a few months ago, he'd let us read to him and plop him in his crib. This lasted about a year. "We done good with this one." we told ourselves while patting each other on the back. Then one day, he didn't. He screamed as if we were trying to perform a lobotomy without anesthesia and flung his gasping, hysterical body against the bars of crib like a forest animal fleeing from a fire. "Maybe he's teething. Maybe he has a cold. Maybe he's started dreaming and is having nightmares." These are the lies we told ourselves. More likely is he caught wind of Henry's bedtime dog and pony show and wanted in on that action.
So, for a month or so, we played adult on child defense, me praying each night I wouldn't draw the Sullivan end of the stick doomed to an hour+ of sanity-weakening antics. After the books, and often during, he becomes a floppy bag of flour. Legs, arms, his massive head - all in different directions and then rotate every ten seconds for far longer than you'd think he could keep it up. Then he stares into space sucking his thumb and pulling fuzz off the nearest fuzzy, textured thing for anywhere between two and thirty minutes. Until, finally, the eyes flit shut, thumb sucking arm falls to his side and his sweaty head with sweaty curls rolls on the pillow.
Jared usually fell asleep with whichever wee devil he'd gotten stuck with and just as he'd come down from his "nap" I'd pass him on the stairs when I was going to bed. Lots of quality time happening.
As fun as I'm sure this sounds, everyone hated bedtime. Even the dogs. It was so time consuming and ridiculous and frustrating that I started taking pictures of the boys sleeping to remind myself that sleep ultimately comes every night. No matter how long it takes. (see my photo series below)
On father's day, we unbunked the bunks and gave each boy his own.
And last Monday we started to sleep train our almost two and almost five year old. It hasn't been particularly fun either and each boy has gone through his own version of the grief stages: Sullivan spending most of his time in denial with a stopover in anger before collapsing into acceptance. Henry heavily favors bargaining and depression. But, I have finished a whole other book than my normal reading load. I've had several more than "how-was-your-day?-good.-how-was-yours?-fine." conversations with my husband, we've even taken a couple walks around the neighborhood and still have been able to fall asleep before 11. It's looking like we may not have to get the boys full beds for their college dorm rooms so Mommy and Daddy have some space to read to them in. Score.
