Someone Needs Sleep Therapy

Not to sound too much like everything's all about me, but I am too old for one of my children to not be sleeping all the way through the night. Sure, I should have thought of this before I signed on to have the second one, but why would I have when the first one was sleeping through the night at 3 months old?

For the last several months we have suspected that Mace actually sleep walks at times. When we first realized it, we put chain locks way high up on all the exterior doors of our home (it took some time, too, because there are nine of them) so that just in case he was wandering in the night and we didn't wake up, he wouldn't be able to let himself outside. At the beginning, he would get out of bed, walk to the door at the top of the stairs and start to open it. Then he started just going to the playroom and getting a toy and going back to his bed. But for the last three months or so, he's been getting out of bed anywhere between 1:30 and 3:30 and coming into our room and climbing in our bed. If he didn't kick me in the head and back every morning at 5:30, I don't think I would mind this development as much since it doesn't require me to leap out of bed in a panic and run around trying to find him before he falls down the stairs or gets to the knife drawer in the kitchen.

We've been trying to pinpoint the cause of his restlessness. I don't even bother taking him back to his own bed anymore and a couple of nights ago, I was so desperate for a full night's sleep that at 11:00 I suggested to Flamingo Joe that he go ahead and get Mace out of his bed and bring him to ours so that he wouldn't need to walk in there and climb in at 1:30. Flamingo Joe wasn't going for it, though.

We thought maybe Mace's naps were getting too long and late in the day so we tried adjusting them, eliminating them, etc., so that he would be more inclined to sleep heavier during the night. Whether he has a nap and at what time, however, does not seem to make a difference in his waking in the middle of the night. And he has trouble making it all the way to bedtime without a nap.

Yesterday, we tried putting him down for a nap at about 2:00. Flamingo Joe went upstairs and laid down in the bed with him. FJ promptly fell asleep, but when he woke up an hour or so later, Mace was still lying there beside him wide awake. When I got up there at about 3:30, FJ was in our bedroom watching TV and Mace was still in his bedroom, laying in his bed, playing with a lightbulb. Apparently he'd gotten bored laying there with nothing to do and decided to dismantle the lamp.

So I told him he could get up and he went downstairs to play with Casey. On days when he hasn't napped, I know better than to let him sit on the couch and watch TV after 4:30 because he always falls asleep and then we can't wake him up for dinner and he wakes up at bedtime ready to play. But I wasn't paying close enough attention last night and thought he was upstairs playing with Casey. Grandma, however, because she pays attention (unlike me), knew he was sitting on the couch and decided she'd better get some food in him before he fell asleep. So she checked on him at about 6:00 and he was still awake. She went back in the kitchen to make a plate for him -- but while she was still working on it five minutes later, Flamingo Joe came in the kitchen to get his phone so he could take a picture:

Sigh.