Midnight Rambling

In my family, when you are moving around in the night, you are midnight rambling.  Well, last night, Micah was a midnight rambler.  He went to bed a little before 11:00PM.  I attempted to go to bed as soon as I knew that he was actually asleep.  I could hear him snoring over the monitor at around 11:10PM.  However, because I am a night owl, I didn't actually fall asleep until around midnight.  Why did Micah wake up at 1:30AM?  I did everything I could think of to get him to go back to sleep in his own bed. He refused. Eventually, I cracked and brought him to bed with Mikey and I.  Big mistake.  If we didn't know before, Micah has confirmed it.  We will never have a family bed*.  

Micah played like it was the middle of the afternoon, and we were just taking a nap.  Instead it was the middle of the night, and we were attempting to sleep.  He kicked his feet.  He played with his feet.  He shook his head.  He played with the sheets.  He chewed on the sheets.  He wiped his feet with the wet sheets.  He crawled around the bed on his feet with his head down.  Kind of like the downward facing dog yoga position.  He sing and talked.  He cried.  He pulled my hair.  He kicked me in the head.  He lay on top of Mikey's head.  He did everything but lay down and go to sleep.  

And what did I do?  I begged and pleaded with him.  Please Micah, just lay down and go to sleep.  He laughed at me.  I threatened him.  If you don't lay down and go to sleep, I'm going to put you in your crib and let you cry it out.  That didn't work either.**  I held him in my arms until I was sure he was sleeping.  He faked it until I loosened my hold on him so that I could fall asleep, then he escaped to crawl around the bed some more.  Mikey just got up and left at around 4:30AM, citing his need for sleep so that he could actually work today.  Micah and I continued our battle.  Finally at roughly 5:20AM, he laid still long enough to fall asleep.  I, however, was still keyed up to battle, and did not fall asleep until around 6:00AM. Micah was awake again at 10:30AM, and I was so not ready for that.  He's napping now, it's raining, and I'm going to join him dreamland.

* Family bed (also known as co-sleeping or sleep-sharing): regularly sharing a bed with your child(ren) instead of sleeping separately.

** I didn't actually put him in his bed to cry it out. The empty threat did not work.