Colin has always been a child who needs a pretty rigid routine when it comes to sleep at night. For most of his life, he has always gotten up early (on average, 5:30am is his wake time), needs a specific amount of sleep (9ish hours) and so it has always been important for us to make sure he is in bed and asleep by 8:30pm every night (it used to be 7/7:30 before activities, homework, and reading). For a pretty long stretch years ago, we used to be able to do the nighttime routine and leave him while he was still awake to fall asleep by himself. However, this started to become more difficult around the time Cody was born and ever since, we have had some other variables that play a role.
It generally has always been pretty easy to get him to sleep, but now he depends on one of us to be with him while he falls asleep. In addition, because Cody is pretty loud at night and takes a long time to stop doing whatever it is he's doing that makes noise every night, Colin can not tolerate going to bed in his bed. He got so frustrated by Cody's antics that it became easier to allow him to fall asleep in our bed; we would then transfer him to his bed when we went to bed. In addition, for the past 6 months to a year, he typically gets up at least one time a night and it takes us allowing him into our bed or one of us walking him back to his bed (and laying with him) to get him back to sleep. We have always felt very strongly about the kids being in their own beds, but now that we depend on what little sleep we get, we have become lax on our rules for ourselves. We also have to weigh out the pros against the cons. We feel that for the time being, what we are doing is working enough and now is not the time to break him out of some of his habits/routines. We are just happy for the time being that he gets the sleep he needs by keeping rigid bedtime routines.
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