The other day my son and I did a little craft together so I figured for a change that I would share a little craft project. My son; Gregory is 2 1/2 years old and although one might think he was a professional at sleeping through the night unfortunately this is not always the case. Of course most nights he does really well but then all the sudden we will have a random night that he will wake up once or twice and sometimes nightmarishly more! I'm not sure why this is but when he does that it tends to almost always start him on a bad habit of waking up numerous times a night for like a week or so. I've looked into this and it doesn't seem all that uncommon. Some might think it could be bad dreams; this of course has gone through my mind but I don't think this is always the case. Of course he has woke up some nights in a horrific cry where I run to him as fast as I can b/c he sounds so scared and w/ out a doubt I believe he has had a nightmare. Gregory doesn't have the conversation skills to tell me why he is screaming but I guess a momma just knows!? Other times he wakes up and just says "Momma" or will moan in his way of saying "I'm up come here" so I groan and go to his room and he points down at his bed so I lay him back down and tuck him back in and he will go straight back to sleep. It's these times that I believe he is being a little high maintenance!
Okay I got a little off track w/ that back story...moving on!
My parents (Gregory's Mimi and Papaw) went out of town on a weekend camping trip and I'm not sure how much Gregory realized their distance as much as found a picture of them that they had given him months back. He clung to this picture....took it everywhere and even to bed one night!!! The next night he didn't take the picture to bed w/ him but woke up hysterically crying and when I went to him and held him he just didn't want to get back into bed. I knew there must have been a bad dream or something for him to act that way but this pregnant Momma needs her sleep! So I thought "the picture!". I went and got the picture and put it into Gregory's bed and then he did go right into bed and went to sleep. It was then I decided he really needed one of these pictures in his bed for comfort or whatever other reason he might have; I was going to make this happen! When my parents returned from their trip I requested an extra b/c I knew they had a few of them. I also pulled out our family pictures of Gregory, my husband and myself b/c of course he needs to have us close by too right!!! He picked his favorite! I ended up putting this project off for about a week as it got swept under the imaginary rug that is my "to do" list; until about a week ago. Gregory woke up twice one night and I wasn't at all thrilled w/ this b/c there was no shreaking or crying...just wanted to be tucked back in. The next night Gregory woke up 4.....yes 4 times!!!! I was so not happy about this and did some research. The more I thought about it the more I decided that my husband and I were enabling him. All he was wanting from us was to come into his room tell him to lay back down and we would cover him back up w/ his blanket. Momma had to make some changes....new rule: we are not to cover him up in the middle of the night anymore...he needs to learn to do this on his own! But this momma isn't just going to leave it at that and expect Gregory to understand this so I made some changes. In case it was a hunger thing b/c I read something about that Gregory for sure gets a snack w/ his milk every night before bed...he isn't a big eater so I never really made this a priority...but now it was going to be. I placed a larger blanket in his crib which I was kind of scared to do in fear that it would smother him but I had to trust that he was old enough to be okay. [We are changing him into a toddler bed this coming weekend so that was when I had planned to give him a bigger blanket but decided if he was going to need to learn to cover himself I needed to make it easier for him b/c he is OCD about making sure he is covered completely!] And I needed to get his pictures up in case they provided some extra comfort. Of course if he wakes up in hysterics I will still run to him; it's the times where he is just waking up to be tucked back in....we would then walk to his door and tell him to lay back down not providing any extra contact. This I hoped would do the trick!
One to the craft...sorry!
Gregory and I sat down w/ the two pictures and 8 popcycle sticks!
Since all these changes have been put into place: the pictures in his bed, the larger blanket and the snack before bed; Gregory hasn't woken up calling out to us, so we haven't had to enforce the don't tuck him in rule!! I hate that my little man is growing up and Momma needs to learn just as much as he does that he needs to do things on his own like covering himself up but I'm so happy I've been able to make this so much easier for him!
Inspired by Sleep!!
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