UPDATE UPDATE
The last two nights Nathan has not woke up with nightmares. However, Aubrey was full of jealousy in her heart that her brother got to sleep on a special bed in our room. The last two nights she has shown up around 3 a.m., feigning a nightmare so that she too can sleep on a special bed in our room. She shows up with her pillow and all her bedding and acts shocked when we aren't moved by her fear. Opportunistic little bugger!
Wednesday morning when Nathan woke up I said, "Nathan, you slept so well last night! Did you have good dreams?" He replied (and Greg was there as a witness), "Yeah, I did have a good dream. I dreamt that I got to spend all day at home with Mama."
Be still my beating heart, you are too precious for your own good.
As thrilled as we are about the upcoming arrival of our baby I still couldn't help but lament to Greg, "We are going to be SO tired. For like a year. SO tired. I mean, bone exhausted. Plus, I'm so used to getting an uninterrupted night's sleep now it's going to feel even harder."
Do you hear Murphy's Law laughing at me? Did I actually say out loud how well our children sleep? Rookie move Sara!
The next day Nathan woke up and crawled into bed in the middle of the night. After 15 minutes he was content to go back to bed. Then he did it again the next day. And the next. He would say in the morning that he was having bad dreams. He never seemed terribly upset and always willingly went back to bed.
That is until last night. He joined us 2:30 a.m. I put him back in bed around 3. At 3:30 I heard him crying, "MAMA! MAMA!" I went and picked him up. He ended up back in bed with us for a few minutes while I reassured him. This time though he refused to go back to bed. Hysterical crying and wailing about being scared and all his bad dreams came pouring out. He was clinging to Greg, begging not to go back to bed. We agreed to let him lay with us for a while longer but every time we tried to put him back to bed he started screaming all over again. We finally ended up making him a bed on the floor of our room and letting him sleep there. That finally happened at 5:30 a.m. and our alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. Ouch.
I will say this for last night. Greg and I both believe Nathan was truly scared. He wasn't acting naughty or bratty but out of his mind scared. I am second guessing every movie I've let him see. Our kids aren't allowed to watch t.v. but they do watch movies and certainly have seen things like "Monster's, Inc." a time or two. I think the more Nathan's imagination develops the scarier these images are to him. We are back to Winnie the Pooh.
Any advice on nightmares? This is new territory for us. You know, because in parenting if it's not one thing it's another. Greg had the audacity to say this was prep for the new baby. I kicked him in the shins.
