A Poor Negotiator

On Friday, I was talking to my friend Krista and was lamenting about our sleep problems and she told me about an article she read that had many sleep training techniques in it. One of them suggested telling the child you would be back in x number of minutes and then leaving the room. I tried this Friday night and it worked great. He did not cry and I did not feel locked in his room. He is still going to sleep too late, but at least we have some progress and he's not waking up too early.

Last night, I used this technique again. At one point, I told him he had to turn off the light (he had been reading) and I sat with him a couple minutes until he adjusted and then I said I would be back in two minutes. He responded "No, come back in four minutes." I said "Ok, you got it, 4 minutes." He eventually fell asleep. I have found I don't even have to come back very often, but maybe every 15 minutes or so. I think he likes that his door isn't shut and really doesn't care if I come back. He can hear us moving around the house and if he really wanted to, he could leave his room and find us.

Anyway, he woke up around 5am (yay, no 1am wake up call!) and he yelled "Chip and Dale!" Alessandro and I just kind of looked at each other. After about 10 minutes he came to our room and handed me a Mickey Mouse doll, a Wild Thing from "Where the Wild Things Are" and a cup of water. Then he left our room. Again, Alessandro and I were puzzled. He went back to his room, shut the door. Came to our room, shut the door and then was ready to get in our bed. He asked for Mickey Mouse, his Wild Thing and his green water (the color of his cup) and then went back to bed and didn't wake up until after 7am.

(Apparently he has a name, Moshe... although, you wouldn't know it from the book!)