The Saga of He Who Did Not Sleep (and his mother)...

I have an amazing sleeper. Not a sofa, not a mattress and definitely not Marc (he sleeps, but not long enough for my taste!). No, this amazing sleeper is the Bean. The Bean is 7 months old and still takes 3 naps a day. These naps are usually at least one hour long, if not longer. Then he goes to bed around 8 p.m. and doesn't get up until 7 a.m. the next morning.

This amazingness is a gift unto me. Because I very much enjoy sleeping. I (unlike my husband) need at least 8 hours of sleep a night to be fully functional the next day. And since I don't generally make it to bed until 11 p.m., a waking time of 7 a.m. suits me just fine. (Bean, if you read this, I would totally be up for not getting up until 8. :o)

But YESTERDAY....oh the horror that was YESTERDAY....

There were NO naps. Not a one. Well, there was that snooze in the car. But that was it.

I saw it coming, but I couldn't have imagined the extent of it's horribleness. You see, when the Bean misses his first nap, it kinda makes the whole day go south. But if he gets a short nap in, then things will generally be ok. So I put him in the car, as we had a church thing to go to. I fully expected that he would sleep for those 20 minutes in the car. And it was very, very silent in the car (no raspberries, no sonar noises, etc.). So imagine my surprise as I opened the door to find a smiling, very awake little man. Uh oh.....

He did, in fact, fall asleep on the way home. But we all know that a 10 minute nap is not sufficient. So, even though he woke up as I was getting him out of the car, I put him in bed. I was certain that he would fall asleep. Oh, how wrong I was.

He cried for the next 90 minutes (not solid - I did pick him up several times and I fed him). But when I wasn't entertaining him, he was crying.

Who's kid was this?? Not mine - he almost never cries, almost always goes to sleep cheerfully.

A trip to Ikea was on the agenda for the afternoon. I thought about canceling, but if I had stayed home, I might have begun to go crazy from the crying. So we went. And he was awake. The WHOLE time.

Seriously? Seriously!!

He fell asleep on the way home (do you see a pattern here?) and stayed asleep as I brought him into the house. I rejoiced, but my joy came too soon. About 10 minutes later, he was awake. So I fed him and as he almost fell asleep drinking his bottle and since he had only slept a total of about 30 minutes the whole day, I laid him down.

He didn't cry.

He also didn't sleep.

Then he started to cry.

So his papa took him on a walk. This goes against all of our sleeping principles --> We do not take extreme measures to make him sleep. He will go to sleep on his own and in his own bed. So we don't and he does.

Why the exception? Well, his mama was sooooo tired. She just couldn't take any more. So this was his papa's gift to his mama.

It took almost a full hour of strolling to get him to fall asleep.

But then he slept the whole night.

And now? My friends, he's sleeping again! And has been for almost an hour.

The Bean is back!