I just had to post this. I went to check on Zoe before heading to bed on Sunday night and this is how we found her. She was out cold and when she showed her the picture she didn’t remember it at all. Mark thinks she kinda rolled off the bed, but I think that’s how she fell asleep…my kids are good about wherever they are when the sleepy bug hits, they pass out. Notice the black shoe…she had some black shoes when she was two that she wore all the time even to bed…I guess it’s making a comeback except in a bigger size.
Mark’s curling up sleepy picture with Josiah. We have one of these with all the kids. I think it’s very sweet.

Okay, I wanted to do a post on sleeping. This is why…I absolutely dislike this part of new babies. It, of course, gets harder when you add older children who are demanding your time into the mix. I prefer to teach our children how to sleep rather than wearing them all day/night and or putting them in the crib and letting them cry for numerous amounts of time. I fret over their sleep and want so much for them to get enough sleep.

That’s not to say that Josiah doesn’t cry. He does…sometimes a lot if he’s over stimulated.

Each of our kids learned to sleep differently. Zoe, being the first, got to be rocked for 45 minutes to sometimes an hour. We did different things with her to help her fall asleep. By the time she was 14 months and in a big girl bed (Ace was on the way), she was pushing us away and wanting to lay down in her bed by herself. If she fussed, it was a little fuss and she was out in less than a minute.

Ace was a “butt” baby. He liked to be patted on his bottom and slept great from about 5 months on. By the time he was seven or eight months old, we would put him in the crib, he’d play for a few minutes and then he was out. One time I went to check on him during nap time and he was asleep sitting up against the crib.

Liam was a rocker for a little while, but really wanted to fall asleep where ever he was sleeping. That meant we had to put him in bed awake. If we didn’t do this, he would wake up within 15 minutes and be very upset. He did have to cry for a little while, but never more than 5 minutes.

On to Josiah. It seems that now, when we rock him, he won’t stay asleep. I think his sleep patterns are starting to get regular and he’s ready to fall into his routine (which we’ve found children do naturally on their own without being forced into one). Yesterdays naps were nonexistent, until late afternoon. At that time, I rocked him until he was calm, put him in his bed by our bed, and put my hand on him and held his paci in until he fell asleep. All told, it took maybe 10 minutes and he was out. I had to wake him up to feed him. We did this at night time too and it worked great. I did it this morning and he slept for 45 minutes. I’m hoping to get his morning nap going and bedtime and then work on the afternoon one.

And now, our children (with the exception of Liam the Explorer at the moment) go to bed by themselves and bedtime is very pleasant (with the exception of Liam the Explorer…we’re working on that though).

So, the last two weeks have been “disappointing” in the area of SEC football…but we’re still fans! Here’s proof:

Liam is watching a game (we didn’t realize Alabama was on until the last quarter and apparently, that’s the quarter to watch for us now). He LOVES football, baseball, basketball…pretty much anything with a ball. We’re still working on saying, “Roll Tide” but he’s coming around. Mark said he ran around the house with the football saying, “hut” and throwing it all afternoon.

Future football players, I guess!!!

I don’t know what has made me think of it, but I just started thinking about Zoe’s Sleepy Bear today and really miss him. It’s a sad tragic story of his disappearance. The picture above is Zoe with her “Sleepy Bear” in 2005.

Sleepy Bear was Zoe’s cuddly toy for bedtimes/naptimes/and general security needs. She’d had him from the time she was about 9 month old on. He helped her learn to fall asleep, survive nursery during those hard separation anxiety times, and generally made her happy. He went on all our overnight trips and an occasional trip to Wal-Mart (always in the car while we shopped). We, unfortunately, only had one of him because when we found out that cuddly toys would work great for getting babies to sleep, her bear had been discontinued. Oh well, she was attached to him right from the start. On our vacation this summer, we stayed overnight, at a hotel on the way up and then on the way back.

I think that on the way back, we were in such a hurry to get home, that we didn’t really scan the room for any leftovers. We believe that Sleepy Bear “slept in” and decided to stay at the hotel. Ughhhh, we got home that night and searched high and low for him but he never turned up.

And Zoe’s attitude…she was fine with it. Mark and I were almost in tears. Her cuddly from infanthood….disappeared. She picked another animal and slept with it and even decided to call one of her other bears Sleepy Bear.

Mark searched in vain for Sleepy Bear calling for days. I think the hotel people just thought we were absolutely crazy to be looking for it…he did look a little ragged and worn and needed a bath badly. And to think, he’s hanging out in the dump somewhere with no one to sleep with him! I’m still sad just thinking about it.

Fortunately, we had learned our lesson after spending hours searching for Sleepy Bear on several occasions. All of the kids have two cuddly toys (although Ace is down to one as one disappeared in D.C. last year). They also have popular ones that shouldn’t be discontinued for a little while and should be easy to find.