Sleep

We've had over a month of fairly easy bedtimes.  Most nights, Finn has fallen asleep within 10 minutes of sitting down in the glider, and he's been staying asleep.  There have been many nights that he's slept the entire night in his crib, and when he does wake up and want to come to bed with me, it's not been until 3-4 in the morning.  I've been really happy with this routine.  I really enjoy the cuddle time, and how easy it is to get him to sleep.

Until this week.  Poor baby has another bad cold, and he's fighting sleep.  Most nights it's taken 40+ minutes of rocking for him to fall asleep, and then he's waking up as early as 10pm.  Those early nights have come with lots of crying, and have required a lot of rocking to calm him down.  One night he just wouldn't fall back to sleep for over two hours.  Then when he does fall asleep, he's been waking up multiple times a night, crying.  Sometimes it's just for a minute, but there's been a few nights of more rocking back to sleep at 1am.  I am exhausted.

Then today was a stressful day at work, and Finn was grumpy when I got home.  He would be fine and happy one minute, and the next he'd be crying and screaming.  Typical tired toddler behavior, I think, and also exhausting.  We read fewer stories at bedtime than usual, but otherwise did our usual bedtime routine, and he seemed ready to sleep.  But when we started rocking, he would not fall asleep.  After 40 minutes, I was tired and ready to be done.  I finally told him that he was just going to have to go in his crib - I gently set him down and he immediately stood up and started crying, "Rock, rock! Mommy, rock!"  I tried to soothe him, but it didn't work.  He got more and more worked up, and I could tell he was going to be crying for at least another 30 minutes.  I didn't want to be inconsistent and pick him up again, but the thought of another 30 minutes of him not sleeping, and this time crying and fussing was too much for me in my exhausted state.  And so I sat down on the floor and cried.  Serious, deep sobbing. Poor Finn.  He looked at me and yelled, "MOMMY!" and then he really started crying - wailing - like I've never heard him cry.  He was in so much distress that I had to pick him up.  He leaned back in my arms, still crying, and touched my face.  "Mommy." And then he put his arms around me, put his head on my shoulder and we both cried.

Once we sat back down in the glider, he calmed down.  He looked up at me again, touched my hair and said, "Mommy crying. Mommy sad." Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep.