Night stories

Of late Daniel has been wandering around the house again at night and it is driving me crazy.  We would ask him what he wants or if something is the matter and he simply doesn’t answer.  

I have been racking my brain thinking of reasons he is waking up at night as he eats well, he is very active, he doesn’t sleep for long in the afternoon and he is very loved and gets lots of attention (mostly, as he does need to compete with his sisters unfortunately)

As a working mother I am of course immediately on a self-induced guilt trip as to the amount of parental attention he gets and blame myself for his waking at night.  And then I thought NO, hold the phone, I don’t actually think that is the case.

Then you start thinking of ways to deal with this waking and wandering and you are faced with some choices.
1.  Let him into our bed.  Not an option for us as he thinks it’s a game and will not go to sleep.
2.  Keep on taking him back to bed without engaging in a conversation.  Also not working very well as we spent 1.5 hours doing that 3 nights in a row and I am SO over that.  Supernanny needs to have some of her own children me thinks.
3.  Last night we did this (and admittedly I slept through most of it):  first time he got up we asked him what he wanted and said to him that we will take him back to bed once more and then the third time we will close his bedroom door.  He said to hubby that he wanted Milo and of course hubby decided that he would just take him back to bed sans Milo.  We then found him looking very confused in the kitchen, obviously looking for the Milo and the waiter, so we obliged.  End of story.

So, what is the moral of the story:  I think he is thirsty or he wants the sucking comfort or he just needs some form of reassurance.  That I can deal with with a smile, but running up and down the passage and disagreeing with hubby about our course of action at 04h00 in the morning is not an option for me.

Oh, and ALWAYS have a game plan 🙂