Sleep you little TURD!

Jax was not the best sleeping little baby in the world. He really did not like to and therefore would not sleep alone. This meant he slept curled up under my arm and nursed on and off all night. He rarely woke all the way up at night ... instead he woke, nursed and went back to sleep. While this was a situation that worked well for him at the time I was rather happy when he outgrew the need. By the time Jax was a year old he was sleeping through the night (although he does like to wake quite early) in his own crib and in his own room. Since then he really does not wake at night ... not even when he is teething or has a cold. He will occasionally rustle and need a bit of patting to calm back down but that is about it.

I have often thanked my lucky stars that Jax was not like Jaida as a baby. Jaida was generally a great sleeper when she slept. She slept long and hard but if she did wake for any reason (26 TEETH!) it was a process to get her back to sleep. The process entailed much shhhh'ing, singing, humming, bouncing, rocking and walking the cold hard floors in the wee hours of the morning. Jax in the last three weeks (for some undisclosed reason) has decided to start waking in the middle of the night. When I say waking I mean really waking up as in greeting us by yelling "hi mama" or "hi dad" as we walk through the door. He also hands us his pacifier and points at the dresser where they are kept when he is not in the crib. It is never a good thing when he hands us the pacifier in the middle of the night because it means he has no intention of going back to sleep. It has gotten to the point where I refuse to take it from him in hopes that he will give up, pop it back in his mouth and go back to sleep. Miracles do happen, don't they? That is usually the point at which he throws the pacifier towards the dresser and starts screaming as loud as he can. That is also the point at which Joe takes over because it requires a bit of walking with Jax to get him back to sleep and well Jax is just way too big for me to carry like that for very long.

Last night Joe made many trips into Jax's room. Then the screaming started. Then I heard Joe finally give up and plop Jax back in the crib ... still screaming. He was just awake and was not going to be left in the crib. I finally took pity on poor Joe and drug myself out of bed to try to help. I sat next to the crib and held Jax's hand until he finally started to drift off to sleep. At that point he was still very restless and needed considerable shhh'ing. So I layed down in the toddler bed in Jax's room and for the next 2 hours shhhh'ed him every 10 minutes or so. Toddler beds are really small. I am very stiff and tired today. The boy BETTER sleep tonight!