What's your dirty little sleep secret?

Sleep.  Such a dirty five letter word in our house.
Why?
We have a non-sleeper.  Is it the baby? Nope. She sleeps on average 11 hours straight every night, unless she's sick.

It's our nearly 3 year old.

Over the past couple years, we've had bedtime battles, frequent night wakings (like every hour or two), difficulty falling asleep on his own (his self-soothing skills aren't great).  He's never been a great sleeper, as a baby, he napped 40 minutes at a time, no longer.  After the age of 2, he started to nap better.  He's never been one to sleep past 6am, only on the odd occasion.   He goes to bed at a good time, we have a consistent bedtime routine (bath, stories, cuddles, bed). 

We definitely lack at consistency with the waking - and as he was our first child, are guilty of so many "dirty sleep secrets" - sleeping on his floor, sleeping outside his room etc.  I know many of you have dirty little sleep secrets in your houses too! We've tried nightlights, transitional objects (lovies etc).  Nothing seems to calm the hysterics we encounter every night.  Every once in awhile, there will be a period of a week or two where he will sleep well, and we ask ourselves "Is it over? Is he becoming a better sleeper?"   Then a setback (a cold or teething, moving to a new house, addition of a sibling) would put us right back at square one!

So now in our exhausted two working parent household, we have reached our breaking point.

And we are vowing to turn our non-sleeper into a sleeper!   Tonight, hubby and I are sitting down to read the four part articles on toddler sleep from http://www.goodnightsleepsite.com/.   Alanna has answered a number of my sleep questions over the past couple of years on her Sunday night sleep session on her Facebook page, so I think starting here is a good place. 

Stay tuned as I will share our journey to become better rested, happier parents!

M~