Sleep Patterns

We're struggling to get David into a good sleep pattern. I usually don't get him down for a nap until 2 pm, and then he sleeps for 2 hours, sometimes longer. But if he romps around in his room for a while, which he does too frequently, he may not fall asleep till 3 pm. That means he's often not waking till 5 pm or later. It's hard to get him to go back to sleep at 8 pm, which we'd love to have as his bedtime. Last week there was one night where he didn't go to sleep till after 10:30 pm!! (He was in bed long before that, but sang and talked to himself, playing for the looongest time.)

I need to get him to bed earlier. I've settled into the 2 pm pattern, so I need to break that in my own system, before anything will change for him. But he usually doesn't seem that tired, even at 2. What to do? We set up a Christmas tree in his room and are hopeful that the incentive "If you don't get out of your bed, you get to keep the tree lights on" will help.

Here are some funny shots from the past few weeks of David asleep. You've already seen the one in the high chair, but it fits thematically! And no, he didn't roll out of bed; he told us himself that he chose to sleep on the floor.






On Thanksgiving, we put David down at 2 pm, but he didn't fall asleep until 3:45! I think I got him overworked: I was trying to encourage sleep, explaining that he needed to fall asleep so he'd be awake when his cousins and Uncle Bobby showed up. But I need to remember he's two, and not that logical. I think it made it harder for him to sleep.

So his cousins showed up only 1/2 hour into his nap. I let him sleep till 4:30, but then asked Jimmy and Johnny to go and gently wake him up. Minutes passed, and finally Anna went to investigate. Softly, softly, her boys were touching David's shoulder and whispering in his ear. I guess he "inherited" his (adoptive!) mom's mode of sleeping: like the dead!