Philip and I have been blessed to have two great sleepers in Callie and Justus. Not that I think it was all luck, we definitely established early routines and expectations that have helped, and Callie and Justus both go to bed easily and sleep through the night, getting up around 7ish. I know Eli’s arrival will blow this all apart for a while, especially since we will be moving Justus into Callie’s room to make space for the baby.
For now though, sleep routines have been great and easy, so when nights like last night come a long, it really messes with me, and reminds me how fortunate I am! Callie Grace had a hard time going to bed, due to Philip not getting home until hours after her bedtime. She really thrives on routine and both kids do better when both mom and dad are home to participate in the bedtime rituals. She finally went to sleep and I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that at least she would sleep in this morning. Around 1am, I hear her get up, open her door, come into our room, and ask for daddy. Philip immediately gets up and gets her something to drink, and tucks her back into bed. 30 minutes later she’s up again, and Philip goes back to put her in bed and comfort her. She comes out an hour or so later and I take over, causing her great distress – “Is daddy ok?”. It takes a few minutes to comfort her, tell her that daddy is fine and that we will have snacks and watch Dora in the morning (both requested and really not appropriate for 3am). She asked that the door be left open, so I go back to bed for about 20 minutes, and hear her calling for me. I go back, and she asks me if daddy is going to get her a puppy dog, and tells me that she wants to name her puppy Chocolate Chip, and that she doesn’t want to go to bed. By this time it’s 4:30am, and I haven’t seen 4:30am with Callie Grace in probably two years!
As far as I could tell, nothing was wrong. I think she must have had a bad dream and it woke her up, then she wanted to see daddy, and then she was awake and ready to start her day. The funny thing was that by the time I was certain she was back to sleep, it was after 5am and I was awake with baby Eli doing his early morning gymnastics! It’s now almost 8am and Callie is still sleeping, however Justus is up and trying to get into Callie’s room to play with her. It has the potential to be a long day!
