On Monday night, after picking Hudson up and heading to the car to head home, I realized he was missing his bear. We went back inside to get it, and had no luck. No one knew where bear was, and after 20 minutes of looking myself, we went home without it. I knew the ladies at his daycare would continue to look for it, and though I felt very nervous to leave without it, I knew it would have to turn up eventually. I mean, it's a stuffed bear, where could it have "run" off to, right?
Well bed time arrived back at home, and we went to put Hudson in his crib to say goodnight at just about 7:30, his usual bedtime. He quickly realized Bear wasn't there, and spent the next 20 minutes crying for bear. He then decided to change his tactic, and figured out a quick way to climb out of his crib. Thus ensued the nightmare. We spent the next 2 hours trying to get this kid to stay in his crib and go to sleep — without Bear. Not only did he figure out how to hop out of his bed in 3 seconds flat, he was not about to go to sleep without his best friend. Finally, at 10:00 (i think the last time he stayed up that late he was less than 4 months old and hadn't figured out sleeping at night), I was able to get him to lay down in his crib, where I rubbed his back for 30 minutes until he fell asleep - probably from exhaustion more than anything. By that time, I had texted the woman from daycare several times, and she finally texted back at about 9:40 saying they had found the bear. THEY FOUND IT! Apparently someone (most likely Mr. "strong arm Hudson") had thrown it behind something in one of the rooms and it got stuck, so it never hit the floor. I see baseball in my son's future. So of course we drove the 30 minutes each way to get that bear, cause there was no way we were going to make it through the night if Hudson woke up and realized it still wasn't there.
Once we finally got to bed ourselves, we had restless sleep, worrying that Hudson would wake up and treat himself to some "out of the crib time" alone. And at about 4:45am, he did just that. Thankfully I woke up, but sadly spent the next hour and 20 minutes trying to get him to stay back in his crib and go back to sleep. He finally fell asleep at about 6:15, and slept for about and hour and 15 minutes (and so did we). Once again we were greeted with his little pitter patter of feet, by our bed.
So that day I called in sick (i was exhausted and definitely felt sick), dropped him off at daycare, and set out to find a "solution" to this "phase" we had just entered. To my dismay, this year they recalled the crib tent due to accidents, and I could not find one anywhere. That's when dread set in. How would we ever sleep again? how would we ever get him to stay in his bed again? what were we going to do!?!?
Of course nightfall came, and a quickening heart rate came with it. — Enter, my amazing, even keeled, patient husband — It's typical for Andy to put Hudson down by himself (i leave during book time, because he's never happy when i leave and we found it was just easier if i wasn't there when he actually went to 'sleep'), so it seemed natural to have him try the normal routine, now that we had bear back. It took several attempts to keep him in the crib. Then something wonderful happened. Andy leaned down, and had a conversation with Hudson that somehow clicked in his little head. He patted Hudson on the head, said goodnight, and walked out of the room. And Hudson didn't climb out. He lied down, sang himself a song, played with his bear, and fell asleep.
So what did he say to Hudson? Stay in your bed and play with bear, then go to sleep. Mommy and daddy will get you in the morning so we can play, but you need to stay in your bed, ok? To which Hudson nodded his head, and did just that.
This, was an answer to prayer, and a moment of thankfulness for my better half.
Now, what do we do when this tactic stops working? it worked again tonight (took about 20 minutes), but what do we do when it doesn't work anymore? we didn't think he was ready for a big bed, but we have started to prep ourselves for that transition. We'll see what happens next I guess.
