February 19th 2011 - The end of bed sharing with G.

Ben leaves tomorrow for…I am honestly not even sure how long. Somewhere between 5 and 6 weeks. Which means that today is a mad dash of practice, sorting merch, guitar center runs and hopefully some fun family time tonight.

My one goal for before Ben left has been accomplished. It was a seemingly simple goal, but proved hard for us. This goal was to get Greyson sleeping in his own bed, without one of us laying with him.

For the first 3 and a half years of Grey’s life he slept next to me in our bed. At around 3 and a half years old we got him a full size bed in his room. The transition to sleeping in his own room was very slow and involved one of us laying with him while he fell asleep.

I absolutely loved this time with Greyson. We would snuggle, read, talk about our day and then lay quietly until he fell asleep. After Winter was born, I cherished this time with him even more. I think I needed the time more than he did!

However, now that Winter is older the 45 minutes that it can take of laying with Grey is not so easy. Especially when Ben is gone.

At Christmas (4.5 years old), G got a new bed. A twin size loft bed. We’ve told him that we can not get in the bed with him because we are too big. This was the first step. We started out reading his bedtime books on the couch and then hanging out in his room with him until he was asleep. Then slowing working on easing ourselves out.

Our new routine rocks! Books in the green chair, potty, say goodnight, tuck in, hugs, kiss… Then I check on him every 8 minutes until he is asleep. Usually, it only takes checking on him once or twice. When we first started this routine, I would go in to check on him and he would be sitting up, sad that he was in bed. I finally convinced him that when I come to check on him, he needs to be laying down! He’s not going to fall asleep sitting up!

So far, Ben has had a few nights of late practice, I’ve done bedtime on my own. It’s gone great! Last tour, bedtime was one of my biggest sources of stress so I am super stoked to have a stress free routine down.