Nap Wars Episode IV : A new hope

Alex in his dino jammies

Abby smilin' for the camera

Yes, the title is a play on Star Wars. But this time it's not about Luke Skywalker defeating the deathstar, but rather about Alex and Abby's new napping mayhem. It's been an interesting adventure so far the last two years with napping. There have been successes and failures, smiles and tears. But This week I think we have new hope. Abby is the easy one. She has been a little sleeping blessing thus far. She has her off days, but they are few and far between. She sleeps now a regular three times a day for 45 minutes to one hour each and then sleeps beautifully through the night a whopping 10 to 12 hours. Ahh...what a dream.

Then...there is Alex. The anti-sleeper. Since birth, we have battled sleeping problems with him. He was still waking up every two to three hours clear up until his first birthday. Naps were torture for him. He would nap, but quite reluctantly. But in the last 4 or 5 months, he has been fairly regular about them. Right now he get one nap a day that lasts two hours roughly. When Abby came along, we were very close to getting him to sleep in a toddler bed and we were almost successful, until he saw that Abby was in his crib. The diaper doo-doo hit the fan and we had to move his crib back to his room and let him go back to sleeping in there all the time. He slept like a little pro once the crib was back in the picture. Well, this week he whined nonstop for an hour at night when we put him down to sleep and I would go in the room only to find him standing in his crib with his pillow in one hand and blanket in the other. He pointed at his toddler bed, (yes, it is still in his room with his crib...tight quarters), so I said ok and got his multitude of stuffed animals out with his two blankets and 1979 Star Wars pillow. I explained to him that he had three strikes. If he got out of bed three times, then he would go back to his crib. He said okay and believe it or not, the little monkey never once got out of bed. He went to sleep within 5 minutes on his own. He did the same thing for nap the next day and we shall see about tonight. My little boy is growing up. I couldn't have been prouder of him. What awesome little kiddos we have!