Sand Man Plan

Ever lay in bed and had the feeling something isn't right?

Something woke me. I lay still for a few seconds trying to work out what it was. Nothing. No movement. Not a sound. I opened my eyes-

-and jumped out of my skin! Miss2 was standing in the bed between Tracey and me, still as a statue, staring at me.

"Honey?" I whispered over the sound of my heart thumping frantically against the walls of my chest cavity. "Honey? You want to lie down now?" She didn't move. It was like one of those kids from Children of the Corn. Eventually I had to get up and lie her down manually - she was sleep stalking.

"This has to stop," I told Tracey the next morning. She readily agreed.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked me.

Damn. I thought I'd just done my bit by pointing the obvious problem out.

"I have the baby to deal with," Tracey rightly pointed out. "You'll need to take care of this."

There have been times in my life where I've considered myself a bit of an insomniac. What rubbish. I was getting loads of sleep compared to this.

I've tried taking Miss2 back to her bed in the wee hours of the night, but she's back next to Mummy within minutes. Some nights she beats me back to our bed.

I've tried sleeping in the lounge room so I can stop her as she comes out of her bedroom, but in PNG I once slept through an air-raid siren which was screaming only three meters from my bed so you can imagine what the chances were of me hearing my little angel pass by on her way to our room.

I've tried coaxing, yelling, silence and pulling my hair out - all to no avail.

So for two nights I've pulled the trundle out and slept beside Miss2. What I really love about our trundle is it's a thin foam mattress on an old spring-based bed on wheels, so when I lie on it it feels like most of my body is actually in direct contact with the floor. Comfy. My plan is she'll have to step and crawl over me to get out of bed, so I'll be able to stop her.

This roadblock technique has been a resounding success in that Miss2 hasn't left her room before daylight, but a failure on the me feeling refreshed in the morning stakes - I'm completely knackered. Tracey, not so much.

"Morning!" she grinned at me yesterday. "That's the best sleep I've had in months! I fed the baby at 2 and that was it. Since then I've had five hours of solid, non-interrupted sleep!"

2am? That would have been about the time Miss2 was attempting to get out of her bed and used my head as a step. Which was about an hour after she dropped a book on my head. Which was about three hours before she started playing with my nose. Which was about an hour before she fell out of bed and landed on top of me. Which was an hour before she jumped into bed with me and used my legs to warm her ice cold feet.

"Aww, you poor darling," said Tracey with absolutely no sympathy at all. "Welcome to my world."

Clearly, considering the whole reason I'm trying to fix Miss2's night time roamings is so I can have more sleep, this approach isn't working. So I've come up with a new strategy.

"Tonight I'm going to try a sleeping tablet," I told Tracey.

"You can't give a two year old a sleeping tablet!" a wide eyed Tracey roared at me.

"Not for her. For me," I explained.

If I can make it from bedtime to sun up without needing to open my eyes I won't care where the hell she's sleeping. Or standing. Or waving her sickle.

Of course, we've got the sanity saving advantage over many parents in this predicament - we've five children older than her who all manage to go to sleep and wake up in their own beds. We know it's a faze and is going to get better. Thank goodness.



This post is a Guest Blog on TWO POINT FIVE KIDS
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In case you're wondering, the 'point five' is her husband :)

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