One week into re-sleep-training the boy - and how's that going? Thanks for asking. Uh, steady? There's a bit of progress, but it's not the instant kind we achieved back when you could put him in his crib and he had no choice but to stay there. I learned the first night that no amount of good old fashioned bribery would keep HR's booty in his bed, and straight up authority couldn't penetrate the bloody murder screams. So I've decided to take a more finessed approach. I'm not totally against taking a hard line with him on lots of issues, for example, tantrums receive zero tolerance. I can do discipline. But as possibly one of the three biggest bedtime menaces in my childhood (tied with my siblings) because I was terrified of going to sleep, I cannot at this point just shut my boy in his room and hold the doorknob until he gives up. I can't do it, it's absolutely not in me. I'm sure I'd have more success that way, ultimately, but I'm unwilling to do what I need to do to achieve that.
So we struck a little compromise. As of now, I kiss him goodnight and leave the room - but stay in the hallway, within his eyesight, until he falls asleep and I tiptoe away. It's not helping that much right now, he still visits our bedchamber sometime between one and four every morning, often needing to be resettled one time in the night before I even go to bed, but we're one step closer than we were last week. Gradually I will figure out how to abandon my sentry post and get him accustomed to independently putting himself to bed like he did in the heady days before the big boy bed transition. Or we just deal with it until he goes to college and learns the true beauty of sleep like I did.
As always, it could be worse. At least he likes baths.
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