Starting Over Again

Adam and I are pretty strict parents. No snacks between meals (other than the regularly scheduled snacks), limited sweets, and "Don't you tell me no!"

One of the decisions we made early on and strongly enforced is that Andrew sleeps in his own bed, he does not sleep in ours. The only time the rule is ever relaxed is when we are travelling. It is hard to keep him in his own bed when he is sleeping 3 feet away in the same room. But every time we travel, we see the wisdom in our decision...because Andrew kicks in his sleep. When Andrew sleeps with us, Andrew is the only one who gets any sleep.

We live in a two-story house, the master bedroom is downstairs and Andrew's is upstairs. Ever since he moved out of his crib and into a bed, we have had a handle lock on Andrew's door. The lock made it difficult to turn Andrew's door handle. Any adult come open the door from inside the room when it was locked, but Andrew could not. The possibility of Andrew navigating the stairs in the dark and half-asleep made the lock necessary. It also meant that when Andrew was ready to get up in the morning, he had to call down to us and wait for one of us to come open the door. A significant advantage for us parents.

Last week, about 5 am, I hear a sound in Andrew's room over the baby monitor. I didn't hear anything else, so I rolled over to go back to sleep. Imagine my surprise when two minutes later Andrew tumbles into bed next to me. "What the heck are you doing here?" "I ready to get up Mommy." Great, just great. The handle lock was no longer an obstacle.

So for a week now, Adam and I have been woken up every morning by Andrew crawling into bed with us, sometimes as early as 3:30 am. That is awfully early folks. We are trying to figure out how to keep him in bed until at least 6:00 am and how to keep him from coming out of his room after we have put him to bed.

Basically, we are starting over on the whole sleeping thing. Any suggestions?