Bye-bye Sleep

Trey has always been a rock star sleeper, at least at night. While he has never been a big nap-taker (he dropped down to one nap a day around 9 months), we have always been able to count on Trey for a good night's sleep. He started sleeping through the night (8-9 hours at a time) around 3 months, and by 5 months he was giving us a solid 12 hours of sleep at night.

But here is the real kicker, and one that I've always been embarrassed to admit for fear that my friends who are parents will either (1) not believe me, (2) think I am a neglectful parent, or (3) resent me so much they can no longer stand to be friends with me: for probably the past 18 months, Trey would regularly sleep in until around 10 on the weekends. I don't mean once in a blue moon, and I'm not talking about nights where we allowed him to stay up until some un-Godly hour. I'm talking about a typical weekend, when we would put Trey to bed at a normal time (or maybe as much as an hour later than normal), and he would stay in his crib without much more than a peep until 10:00 or later.

And on the weekdays, we usually wouldn't hear a thing from Trey until going to get him up when we were ready, typically around 8 or 8:30. Was he actually sleeping this entire time? I don't think so, but if he wasn't, we didn't know it; he was perfectly content to lounge around in his crib until he either heard us making noise in the house or until we were ready to get him up ourselves.

Yes, we were blessed. And spoiled. And possibly neglectful. But we so enjoyed it. If you know us well, you know that we are not exactly morning people, and we like our sleep. We were lucky to have a baby who was perfectly willing to indulge us in sleeping in on Saturdays.

But in the past couple months, all of this has changed. In late October, we started weaning Trey from his pacifier. Trey only uses a pacifier at night and for naps at home, and he is not allowed to have it at any other time during the day or at any time at school. For most of this year, Trey hasn't really needed it, but he has wanted it. When we started cutting the tip down from Trey's pacifier, he didn't lose his affection for it, but he pretty much stopped using it. Now, when he cries for "paci," he really just wants the comfort of holding it rather than putting it in his mouth.

So, I guess the weaning is working somewhat. But the trade off is that Trey is no longer content to sit in his crib, suck on his pacifier, and think about the world. Now, when he is up, he wants UP!

So, while a typical Saturday a couple months ago might have involved leisurely getting up around 10, Trey now wakes up like clockwork at 8 and pretty much immediately starts creaming "waaaaaah! Daddy, Mommy!" with the occasional "up!" This morning, Mommy walked in Trey's room after several minutes of this crying to find Trey completely unclothed and pretty close to pulling off his poopy diaper. Lovely.

Have we regressed? I don't think so. I just think our good fortune has finally run out in this regard. Serves us right, I suppose, and all in all we are still pretty lucky. Even sleeping until 8:00 ain't so bad!