Hush Little Baby, Don't Say a Word...I'm serious, NOT ONE WORD!

Emerson has always been a sleeper. He started sleeping through the night (~7 hour stretch) at 10 weeks old. A few factors that I think contributed to this...he was a big boy, with a big belly, and also started on formula around that time. As a new Mom, I kind of felt like a rock star. I have this awesome baby, who is an awesome sleeper. So, by default, I must be an awesome Mom.

This continued for years, literally. For the longest time, Emerson was a 7pm-7am sleeper. And still took a healthy 2-3 hour nap midday. Gradually, his bedtimes got a little later. After turning 3, he started going to bed between closer to 8pm. This was still an amazing advantage when it came to things like training for the half marathon. After working all day, family time in the evening, cleaning up after dinner, and getting Em to bed, an hour on the treadmill was a form of therapy.

A few months ago, Emerson started telling us "but, I'm so hungry" after laying down for the night. So we started incorporating a banana into our bedtime routine. Then he started getting "so scared" of the "bad guys and ghosts." Then he wanted us to "please lay with me for one minute." This didn't always impact sleep time, if we were able to quickly put the kibosh on whatever excuse he was coming up with. There were some nights though, that he realized we weren't coming back in to get his blue race car, that he "needed" and he would lay there and sing to himself or talk to himself for a couple of hours! There is a book I came across, and immediately knew I needed to buy.

This book is a perfect reminder that this is what toddlers do. They try your patience, they push the limits, and they laugh all the way through it. Jason and I approach these challenges, once we get past the absurdity of getting mad about Emerson requesting 17 cars for bedtime, with humor. It would be ridiculous to not laugh! And seriously, they wrote this book for a reason.

Big picture, we know we're lucky that Emerson waited until he was 3 years old to challenge bedtime, and all that goes with it. And I feel like we've quickly rounded the corner, and had some really successful bedtimes lately. In bed, teeth brushed, books read and prayers said by 8:15. And when that doesn't work, we read the book to ourselves, and then head back down the hall.