Bedtime Shenanigans...

So, Aidan was always easy to put to bed. He has two speeds: on and off. He is so active during the day that falling asleep is never any problem. I was hoping that we would escape the bedtime stalling that seems to plague most houses with small children...

And then we got Gresham.

Gresham was recently potty-trained just shy of age 3 1/2. I thought the day would never come! Now that he is wearing underwear, even at night!, he likes to get up to go potty about 47 times before falling asleep. Seriously, he can get up 5 times in 30-45 minutes and sometimes he is still awake at 10:00 p.m. He's very quiet and goes right back to bed, but we are worried about how much sleep he is getting.

This week, he is also giving up his afternoon nap, so we decided to get serious about putting a stop to the bedtime potty trips.

Monday night: Gresham got up. Gresham got up again. Daddy told him that this would be his very last potty trip. Didn't hear from him again.

Tuesday morning: Gresham informed me that his bed was wet because the night before, Dad had told him to only go potty once, and after that to potty in his pants, so he did. I was fairly certain that that was not Dad's intended message. Turns out I was right, and Dad set the record straight after he got home from work.

Tuesday night: Gresham got up. Dad told him that this would be his one and only potty trip.
A few minutes later, I was working on the computer and suddenly sensed the presence of a child standing right behind me. (Gresham does this in the middle of the night, too. I'll be sleeping and then suddenly have this sense that he is standing right next to me. I wake up, and there he is...) Gresham was naked from the waist down. He informed me that he needed clean pants because Dad told him not to get up anymore, and so he had no choice but to potty in his pants. Since it had been about 7 minutes since he last went, I found this hard to believe. Sure enough, he had squeezed out about 3 drops into his pants, and we had to find clean underwear...

Wednesday night: No nap today, and a long day at my school... No potty trips, and Gresham is asleep!!!!