The dogs sleep through it all

I love my mornings. Austin is having his happy time of day and the dogs are still tired. That said, I REALLY love that coffee.

The most asked question since having Austin is "How are you sleeping?" I find myself having discussions of where, how long, and what times he sleeps with people in the grocery store! Welll World, the answer is NOT WELL!!!

We have recently transitioned Austin into his own crib for naptimes and that went really well. More recently, we have started puting him down for the night in there as well. This means that one of us will be making the cold trek down the hall to fetch the little guy sometime during the night to finish it off with all three of us snuggled in our bed. Or should I say, Chris and I holding onto the sides of the bed trying not to fall out as Austin tumbles around in the middle. For a baby that just started getting mobile, he has awesome nighttime movements!

This has led to frequent wakings of the babe and longer stretches of being up. I believe two nights ago it went something like this:
8PM: Austin goes to sleep
10PM: Chris and Jes go to sleep
10:30PM: Austin wakes up and feeds
11:30PM: Austin wakes up and talks
12:30AM: Austin wakes up and feeds
1AM: Jes starts saying, "GO TO SLEEP!" Austin thinks that is funny. Chris rolls over and buries head under pillow.
2:30AM: Austin wakes up and feeds
4:30AM: Chris gets up, Austin gets up to feed, Jes sleeps and feeds
6AM: Austin wakes up and talks
6:45AM: Austin wakes up for good, Jes sticks finger in his mouth to chew on and lies there until 7:20 when the house is warm (heat comes on at 7)

This routine is normal. Not fun, but it is manageable, and totally normal.

Every night Chris and I think of something that we think will be the magic answer.
Turn on the electric heater!
Give him blankets!
Take away the blankets!
Turn on music!
Rock him!
Give him his pacifier!
Try sleeping on belly!
And on and on and on....And even if they don't work, it does keep the waking routine interesting as we are always waiting for the new thing to WORK!

Last night was funny. Last night our plan was for Chris to go in the first time he wakes up, try a bottle of water, and put him down. This created 30 minutes of screaming. I went in to see if he wanted help, he said no. I went back to bed and heard Chris go downstairs with Austin. I thougt he was looking for milk to warm up and went down to tell him we don't have any and I could just feed him. He wasn't looking for milk. Chris decided that what Austin needed was a good talking to at midnight.

Scene: Lights all on in the kitchen. Chris sleepy in shorts standing wide awake Austin on the counter. "You HAVE to go to SLEEP!!!"

Me: Ummmm...honey, I don't think that is going to work.

I took him and rocked him and he fell fast asleep. Silly boy.

We all went back to sleep to be woken in the next half hour. Finally at 2AM he was brought in to command the middle of the bed again. I'm sure Chris' mind went to what our trick will be for tonight. Maybe he'll try a Power.Point presentation to explain things this time around. My mind drifted to that first cup of coffee in the morning as my head drifted off the side of the bed.