Thank God - he slept thru the night

It's amazing what a night of uninterrupted sleep can do for the soul.

Well, almost uninterrupted - I had to pee at 5am. But I practically danced to the toilet after looking at the clock, then at the video monitor and saw that Charlie was still sleeping.

I used to take this for granted - him sleeping. No more, my friends.

And then, as if it were my birthday and he decided to give me the best gift ever, he took a 3 hour nap today. Of course, we've altered the nap thing - he still loves his bouncy seat, though he's waaaaaaay too big for it. So we've been letting him nap in that.

If he gets uncomfortable, we put him on his Elmo couch. Whatever - I don't care if he's sleeping in Boo's bed, as long as he's sleeping.

I posted pics in the Gallery - check them out.

Go to Sleep, Little Charlie....

...before we sell you, on eBay

Oh, that's not how the song goes.

Right now it's 8:53p and Charlie is standing in his crib, shaking the rails and screaming his abnormally huge head off.

He's been in there until 8:25p. We're having some sleep issues in our house.

You have to believe me when I say Charlie was an ideal sleeper. When he was younger, he wasn't able to fall asleep on his own. He needed to be rocked to sleep. So when he would wake up at night, he would need me to go in there to rock him back to sleep.

So I picked a weekend to stop this - I used a modified cry-it-out method - let him cry for 5 minutes, go in there and let him know I still exist - then let him cry for 10, go back in and soothe, then cry for 15, etc.

It took 2 days and bam - he was sleeping through the night.

That was probably 8 months ago. 8 months of blissful, uninterrupted sleep - for all of us. He seemed to like his crib - he would never cry - he'd play with his toys and read his books, and drift peacefully off to sleep, usually with his head resting on his open Binky book.

Then sometime in the last week or so, he turned. Suddenly, when he saw his crib, he started screaming hysterically. When I put him in the crib, he would throw his blanket and binky out of the crib with all his force. Even if he was so drowsy before going into his crib that he was stumbling into furniture and resting his head on the carpet for a little break, he would be on High Alert when he saw that crib.

I don't know why this happened suddenly at 15 months - I don't see new teeth, we didn't move into a new house, and he doesn't have a new sibling (and at this rate, he never will).

So I tried to do the modified cry-it-out thing. He would just get more upset every time he saw me. I tried staying in his room and ignoring him. I eventually brought him into the guest room with me so we could get some sleep.

We have been walking zombies here. I'm not even able to make a joke here - I am just so tired. So tonight, I just decided to follow Jason's suggestion - let him cry it out for real.

No check-ups. No co-sleeping. Just let him cry. And scream - and sweat and snot and jump and throw stuff.

Well, it worked - 9:00p he fell asleep. Let's just hope he breaks in two days like he did last time, and not two weeks.