Musical beds (without the music)

Owen has suddenly become very scared of sleeping in his bed. He cries and hides under his blanket at bedtime. He looks like a Winnie the Pooh version of Cousin It from the Munsters...only, I don't think Cousin It shook and wailed like it was scared to death. The first couple of times it happened, I thought, "This can't last too long. I'll just let him get tired, he'll stop and go to sleep." Right! Twenty minutes later, the boy would still be under the blanket crying, only now he was a big sweaty, snotty mess.

My easy solution? Take the boy to bed with me so he can relax and go to sleep...only this backfires and I fall asleep too. Not cool when I had planned on working after the boys were in bed.

Ok, obviously that didn't work, so I tried letting him sleep with a brother. Logically the safest place would be in bottom bunk with Dylan. Not from Dylan's perspective, though, because I get, "I don't like Owey!" when I ask Deets if O can sleep with him. He doesn't just say it, he yells it with this horrible scrunched up face...and he wonders why Owen wants to beat the crap out of him and take his stuff on a daily basis, but that's another blog entry I'd rather not go into.

That leaves only one other alternative and that is top bunk with Brandon. Brandon is far more nurturing and tolerant of his baby brother, so I knew Brandon wouldn't mind having Owen to cuddle in the middle of the night. It was the top bunk thing that had me worried. "But then again, Owen never gets out of bed on his own", I reason. With that one thought I lamely convinced myself to allow the "slumber party" in top bunk because I didn't know what else to do. I just figured that after all my boys were asleep, I would climb into top bunk and carry all 35 pounds of that boulder back to his bed. Well, that didn't work out either, because Owen would wake up at 2am shivering and crying under his blanket until I came to get him. So now I just let him stay with Brandon all night, and he usually doesn't wake up until morning. When he does, he calls me to come get him, because, after all, he's still the baby and he needs Mommy's arms and warmth first thing in the morning. It won't be long before I no longer have warm snugly little bodies climbing into my bed, so I relish every moment I do have it.