A month or so ago Sammy went through a fairly sleepless period.  He had a hard time going to sleep, woke up very early, and woke up several times in the night.  Sometimes he would wake up crying and yelling with a nightmare, or he would come into our room and tell us that he had a nightmare and want to get into bed and cuddle with us.  After a few times of these middle-of-the-night cuddle sessions, we began to think that while these nightmares were certainly real sometimes – they probably weren’t happening with the frequency that Sam was claiming they were.  We began to suspect they were becoming an excuse to snuggle in our bed – which is fine every now and then, but the boy is getting pretty big these days and has a tendancy to kick and wiggle in his sleep.  So we started giving him reassurance and hugs, but sending him back to his bed.

But Sam was still wandering around the house at night and very early in the morning.  And we were still putting him back into bed.  So Sammy came up with a Plan B – he snuck into big sister’s room.  Her bed had plenty of room in it and she didn’t take him back to his room.

In the beginning, Sam would wake her up and they would both be up for the day at 5-frickin-AM.  Fortunately that phase ended quickly and we’ve entered a new phase.  The new phase looks like we put the kids to bed in their respective beds.  Stories, snuggles, songs, lights out.  Then, at some point after we’ve gone back to the kitchen, Sammy creeps out of his room and into Clarey’s.  Then they both go right to sleep (or maybe Clare already is asleep – I’m not sure).  They’re quite sneaky about it and we never hear him, we just find a scene like the one below when we check on them in the night.

If we carry sleeping Sam back to his room, we find him like this in the morning.  So we gave up.  I know that they won’t always be this close and sooner or later they are going to start closing doors on either other.  For now, we’ll keep this one open.  Sweet dreams, Sweet Peas.