Last night, I was playing with Ethan and started tickling him. He cracked up and started protesting: "No tickles, Mommy! Hahahaha! Mommy, stop! T-S-O-P, STOP!!"
Nice! He's spelling at us now! :o)
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Reading and sleeping through the night
For a while now, Ethan has been playing with phonics and has been matching letters with the sounds that they make. He's been able to recognize certain words in context: "stop" on stop signs, "on/off" on switches, for example. But several weeks ago, he started recognizing those words out of the usual context...as stand-alone words in books, etc. Now he's starting to spell certain words or see a word and sort of sound it out to figure out what it might be. It's still kind of hit and miss, but he's definitely getting the idea. My favorite error that he's making right now is seeing the "o-n" combo in a word like (vacatiON) and he'll say "O-N spells on!" It's a big game to see if we can figure out which word he's "reading" so that we can tell him what the whole word actually says.
In other good news...I think we may actually have the sleep thing figured out! And it's only taken us 2 and a half years! :oP He's always been a terrible sleeper. We've tried sleep training, and it was horrible, HORRIBLE. Over the last few months, he was waking up 6-7 times a night and needing us to stay with him until he fell asleep. His bedtime routine was taking me 45 minutes every night...and this was AFTER his bath and storytime. It was ridiculous. Jim and I were tired and cranky, and we'd just give up after the millionth trip to his room and just let him sleep the rest of the night in our bed. Bad us, be consistent, blah blah blah, I know. But when you're exhausted, all of that goes out the window and you do whatever it takes to get an extra 5 minutes of sleep. Even if it's terrible sleep, you'll take whatever you can get, however you can get it.
So, after Halloween night and all the festivities, Ethan was pretty darn tired. I decided to explain to him that he was going to go to bed in his room all by himself, and mommy was going to go to bed in her room, see him when the sun wakes up, etc. We had a nice conversation about it, I explained our expectations, and I left. He cried. Screamed, actually. I think Jim went and checked in on him, made sure all was good, left and let the yelling start again. It actually didn't last too long, and he did fall asleep after a while. He woke up once or twice, called for us, cried a bit, and went back to sleep. He woke up as soon as the sun came up...5:45 or something crazy like that. But he woke up *in his room.*
As we drove around running errands the next day, Ethan announced "I cried in my room. Mommy left me." Ouch. We told him we were so proud of him for sleeping in his room all night, that he was okay and everything is good, and he agreed. That night, he cried a bit when I left his room, so Jim went in to say goodnight. Then Ethan konked right out and I don't think he woke up again until the morning. BUT he was still getting up ridiculously early, thanks to the time change.
After a couple of days of consistently sleeping through the night without crying, we bought Ethan a digital clock for his room and explained that he's supposed to sleep until it says 7. (I covered up the minutes and just left the hours section visible to minimize confusion...he *is* 2, after all!) We drilled him: "what if it says 5? 'I go night night!' What if it says 6? 'I go night night!' What if it says 7? 'I wake up!!'" Then we crossed our fingers. The first night went well. He woke up at 6:30, but he needed a diaper change so that was fair. After he was all clean, I asked him what time it was. He said 6 and went back to sleep. Since then, he's been waking up after 7. This morning, I woke up to a cheerful "Mommy! It's 7! I see 7!" on the monitor. Soooo much better than "MOOOOOOMMMY! WAAAAA!!" at 5:45!!
I just got him into bed about 30 minutes ago. We read 2 stories, I let him turn off his light, tucked him in, gave and got goodnight kisses and hugs, he said "night-night mommy" and rolled over. And I left. No peeps, no cries, nothing. Just a sweet little boy, drifting off to sleep. If you had told me this was possible 2 weeks ago, I would have laughed hysterically (mostly out of exhaustion!)
The impossible is possible tonight. :o)
In other good news...I think we may actually have the sleep thing figured out! And it's only taken us 2 and a half years! :oP He's always been a terrible sleeper. We've tried sleep training, and it was horrible, HORRIBLE. Over the last few months, he was waking up 6-7 times a night and needing us to stay with him until he fell asleep. His bedtime routine was taking me 45 minutes every night...and this was AFTER his bath and storytime. It was ridiculous. Jim and I were tired and cranky, and we'd just give up after the millionth trip to his room and just let him sleep the rest of the night in our bed. Bad us, be consistent, blah blah blah, I know. But when you're exhausted, all of that goes out the window and you do whatever it takes to get an extra 5 minutes of sleep. Even if it's terrible sleep, you'll take whatever you can get, however you can get it.
So, after Halloween night and all the festivities, Ethan was pretty darn tired. I decided to explain to him that he was going to go to bed in his room all by himself, and mommy was going to go to bed in her room, see him when the sun wakes up, etc. We had a nice conversation about it, I explained our expectations, and I left. He cried. Screamed, actually. I think Jim went and checked in on him, made sure all was good, left and let the yelling start again. It actually didn't last too long, and he did fall asleep after a while. He woke up once or twice, called for us, cried a bit, and went back to sleep. He woke up as soon as the sun came up...5:45 or something crazy like that. But he woke up *in his room.*
As we drove around running errands the next day, Ethan announced "I cried in my room. Mommy left me." Ouch. We told him we were so proud of him for sleeping in his room all night, that he was okay and everything is good, and he agreed. That night, he cried a bit when I left his room, so Jim went in to say goodnight. Then Ethan konked right out and I don't think he woke up again until the morning. BUT he was still getting up ridiculously early, thanks to the time change.
After a couple of days of consistently sleeping through the night without crying, we bought Ethan a digital clock for his room and explained that he's supposed to sleep until it says 7. (I covered up the minutes and just left the hours section visible to minimize confusion...he *is* 2, after all!) We drilled him: "what if it says 5? 'I go night night!' What if it says 6? 'I go night night!' What if it says 7? 'I wake up!!'" Then we crossed our fingers. The first night went well. He woke up at 6:30, but he needed a diaper change so that was fair. After he was all clean, I asked him what time it was. He said 6 and went back to sleep. Since then, he's been waking up after 7. This morning, I woke up to a cheerful "Mommy! It's 7! I see 7!" on the monitor. Soooo much better than "MOOOOOOMMMY! WAAAAA!!" at 5:45!!
I just got him into bed about 30 minutes ago. We read 2 stories, I let him turn off his light, tucked him in, gave and got goodnight kisses and hugs, he said "night-night mommy" and rolled over. And I left. No peeps, no cries, nothing. Just a sweet little boy, drifting off to sleep. If you had told me this was possible 2 weeks ago, I would have laughed hysterically (mostly out of exhaustion!)
The impossible is possible tonight. :o)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
