Battle of Wills

I've been trying to get my bed back from Soren now for a few weeks, to no avail. It's become a power struggle and one I admit I am losing to a 3 month old. He did great sleeping in his crib for a few hours in the early night for a little while. But then he would wake up utterly pissed that he was not in my bed. And beyond pissed that he wakes up and I'm not there either.

I know he can do it. When it's J's night he goes down peacefully almost every time. Yet when it's my turn he stays asleep only on my shoulder. The moment I put him down in his crib, or car seat, or bouncy seat, or anything that is not me or my bed, I begin the mental countdown of 5 minutes before he will inevitably wake up and start letting me know under no circumstances are these sleeping arrangements to be tolerated.

I caved for awhile during our week of flu here, in order to get any kind of sleep possible. Since he wakes up every 2 hours, it was killing me to wake up, get out of bed, stumble upstairs, nurse him, and then spend an hour trying to get him to go to sleep again, stumble back down into bed only to have Ashe or Zavi need me, and by the time I finished helping them out Soren was up again. So I selfishly brought him into bed with me in order to survive. And that worked great for him. So great, in fact, he has decided to take up permanent residence again in the middle of our bed.

Last night was my night to get Soren to sleep. The night before J was able to get him to conk out in the crib. he did wake up once screaming and I had to go in and console him until he passed out again, but my point is he slept in his crib on Js night. So when it was my turn last night I figured we could do the crib thing again no problem. He passed out and I placed him in his crib, comatose, and prepared to pop on to my game. He lasted 10 minutes before I heard him whine, then bawl. I grabbed him, checked his diaper, gave him a pacifier, and rocked him to sleep. I gently put him down in his crib and he woke up and started to bawl. Again. Resigned I took him out to the living room and settled down to watch House with him cuddled in my lap. Again, he passed out. No taste in TV shows if you ask me! I prepared his car seat and put him down. He stayed asleep for 5 minutes so I thought I was safe and tiptoed back upstairs to game.

About 15 minutes later I heard him wake up and start to whine again. I wasn't ready to give up though. I went AFK, brought him and his car seat up and set it beside me. He seemed happy so long as I was in his line of sight, and contently watched me raid for about an hour. But he wouldn't sleep. Oh no.

It's now about 9:30 and he starts to fuss again. I finally succumbed to the realization that I would most likely not be raiding anymore for the night, so I left the raid, gated back to the guild hall, threw up my AFK tag and grabbed Soren. We headed downstairs to watch more TV until he passed out. Fortunately I had DVRd Ancient Secrets of the Egyptians so I had something to watch that was actually interesting. Soren was just content in hanging onto me for dear life, eyes wide, staring at my face. Staring me down. We both knew this was a battle of wills and he was determined to win!

I held out for awhile. I too, was determined to win this night, but after an hour passed with him never straying his gaze from me, I realized I was defeated. Besides my show was over and I had nothing else left to watch. Slowly I stood up, and walked towards my bedroom. The moment I put him down on the bed Soren gave me a huge toothless grin and started wiggling around like crazy. Think of it as the baby version of the happy dance football players do when they get a touch down. I muttered to him "Yeah yeah you won. Stop rubbing my face in it." He respectfully stopped, knowing it's not nice to rub salt into open wounded pride, and happily contented himself with playing with my face, hair, and most especially, my shirt. But still he refused to sleep.

After awhile I came onto an idea that I thought may help him pass out for good. I had noticed he was constantly clutching my shirt. So in a fit of inspiration, I took it off and handed it to him. He instantly clutched it to him like a life vest and promptly passed out cuddled to it within a minute. And he didn't wake up for 3 hours.

I didn't win getting my bed back last night. But I did learn something valuable. I learned that no matter what my baby feels absolutely contentedly safe and secure when I'm around (I knew that but it really hit me last night). And I learned when all else fails for getting a baby to sleep, I will literally give him the shirt off my back if it helps him. My only thought is to wonder if Soren is going to grow up and use my shirts as his lovey and how I'll survive the bill to buy myself new shirts to actually wear.