Sleepwalk

A new phenomena is happening at my house. My children no longer go to sleep at night. I believe that it's mostly being caused by my 2-year-old daughter who, a few weeks after getting her Big Girl Bed, discovered that she could get out of it on her own and wander around the house. So now, when we put her down at around 7:30ish, she'll have her candy (Flintstone vitamin), her milk and stories read and lay there for around 25-30 minutes. Then, she starts a-wandering. She'll usually come out first down the hall into the toy room and explain that she needs some random toy. We'll usher her back down the hallway and put her back in bed. About 5 minutes later, she comes out to say she can't find something. Most of the time it's one of her plethora of animals or dolls she sleeps with. We'll put her back to bed. Another five minutes or so later, she'll come out and by now, T's noticed that his little sister is out wandering and will come join her. They don't really want anything at this point, so T comes up with some type of story to explain why he's out there. Last night it was because he wanted to make sure that he'd get his Transformer fruit snacks in his lunch for Kindergarten the next day. And back to bed they go. Last night, she started something new. She pushed her little stepstool out to the hallway light switch and just stood there flipping the light on and off, waiting for someone to come and get her, because by 8:45 or so, it's just a fun game. By 9, she's out of excuses and reasons to get out of bed, so she'll just wander out into the living room and stare at us until we come put her back to bed. She will eventually fall asleep. Around 9:30-10.

She can then get up at about 2 in the morning and come into our room and very quietly say, Mommy? over and over, then she'll come over to my side and say Daddy? I'm awake. until I tell her to go back to bed. Then at about 5 in the morning, she'll come back in and let us know she can't find her sucker. So we'll tell her it's in her bed and she needs to go there and lay down some more. Then at about 6ish, she'll come find me to let me know she's awake. And at this point we'll put her in our bed and turn on Pooh, or Mickey or Ses or something so she'll lie there and be still.

Of course, if I got to take a nap between 11 and 3 in the afternoon, I guess I'd be able to stay up later and wake up early too. But I can't sleep at work. Not really, anyway. Thank God for DVRs.