And it begins again

When Larien was about ten months of age, she began waking in the night wailing. She didn't want to nurse. She didn't want juice or food or a diaper change or any one holding her. We guess now that she was either having nightmares or teething pain. Whatever it was, the effects of Phill and I were not pleasant. One of us would sleep on the floor of the sunroom with her while she wailed herself to sleep. Like I said earlier, it didn't calm her if we held her, so we opted for the "It's better to be with her than abandon her in her crib" type of parenting. Phill was the one who did most of the sleeping on the floor. With the drugs he was taking at the time he could sleep through anything. When she finally stopped the night waking, we were very grateful.

Fast forward to the past two weeks with Finwe. He has begun night waking for no apparent reason. There is one big difference; he will instantly quiet when held. This means that one of us has to hold him until he is so deeply asleep that he can be placed back in his bed. Transfer isn't always successful, or it only lasts for another three hours.

We are now back to sleeping on the sunroom floor with Finwe. When I say we, I mean Phill as he has been the one to do it the past two nights. The first night we were lucky in that Finwe woke at the respectable hour of 4am. Three hours of sleep on the couch as the boy sleeps on his pallet (pre-made before we went to bed).

Last night, Finwe awakened at 10:30pm. I gave him a bit of milk and managed to lull him to sleep while sitting instead of the pacing through the house that is usually necessary. I could have placed him in his crib, but I was worried that he would wake again and be more difficult to get back to sleep. I chose to put him on the floor pallet so I could snuggle with him for a short time. Since Phill was out of town for four days, he told me to get some real sleep. He slept on the couch with White Dragon as his living hot water bottle. Finwe had hogged most of the cover that I had put in the sunroom.

For the rest of the night, Finwe never woke again. One of our guesses as to why he is waking is that he is hitting the sides of the crib. This happened to Inwe at about 20 months of age. She began sleeping in a big bed shortly afterwards.

For now, we'll tough it out to see if the phase passes, but if it doesn't . . .

Well, the boy will say bye to the crib to a pallet on the floor in his room.