The mind of a 2 year old is a wonderfully, imaginative thing.

When you make the decision to have kids you have made your own bed, now you must lie in it.  Or in some cases, never lie in it.

We are doing the typical night wakings with Jude, our 4 month old.  She's gotten to the point where we're up about once or twice a night.  Reswaddling her or putting the pacifier in to settle her back into sleep.  Pretty normal, I think.

Joey, our 2 1/2 year old, though has become somewhat perplexing.  The other night, he woke in the middle of the night crying (around 3:00 am).  Joe went into his room and he said "something's in my bed"  Sure enough Joe felt around and three of Joey's plastic dinosaurs that he had placed there earlier in the day were rattling around at the foot of his bed making noise. Joe removed the dinosaurs, showed them to Joey and tried to cover him back up to go back to sleep ... no dice.  The tears started and Joey's next comment was "Swiper's in my bed"

For all of you non-Dora the Explorer watchers, Swiper is Dora's nemesis, a sly Fox that likes to swipe all the items Dora and her friends hold dear.  They are often able to thwart Swiper by saying "Swiper no Swiping"   

Joey watches Dora, periodically.  He's really gotten out of that phase over the last few months as Elmo and Sesame Street have taken over as the favorite.  So where Swiper came from, I'll never know.  But he was convinced Swiper was in his bed and would not lie back in his bed until Joe removed all the blankets and got a new blanket out of the closet.  Joey went back to sleep with his new blanket.

But that was not the end of it.  Swiper made a re-appearance the next night when I was trying to put Joey to bed.  He went down around 9:30, but came running to his door, crying immediately after I had left the room.  He told me again Swiper was in his bed.  I knew the story from the night before so I removed all the blankets that had been put back that morning.  Got the other blankets out of the closet and resettled him.  I thought that was the end of it.  But he was back at his door crying 3 more times before I finally got him to go to sleep around 11:30.

Over a period of the last two weeks, Joey has been getting out of bed, crying at his door (there's a short gate there to keep him in), until we come to his room to  tuck him back into bed.  It happens at 10:00 at night, at Midnight, at 2:00 & 3:00 am and sometimes at 5:00 in the morning.  No time is off limits in the mind of a 2-year old. I know some parents would say (including myself), let him cry, he'll go back to bed on his own.  At 2 1/2 I believe he will.  He's old enough to calm himself and I don't want to set a bad precedent where he thinks he can cry at the door and Mom or Dad will come every time.  Then none of us will get any sleep. 

The problem is, his door is right across from his sister's door and when his crying or tantrum goes on long enough it wakes the baby, then we've got two crying kids on our hands.  I had this very scenario for 2 nights, when I decided it had to stop.  After three repeat appearances at his door, I put him back in his bed and held his door closed, there's no lock on it.  That really set him off into a tantrum. He tried to open the door, but I held it closed.  He went into a fit of crying and screaming saying "Open the door Mommy", "Open the door".  I started to cry myself, but I held firm, something had to give.  After about 10 minutes his crying subsided for a few minutes, then he would try the door again and I would hold it and the crying would start all over.  I felt like the worst Mom in the world.

Finally he did go to sleep.  Over the next few nights, he would be up crying because of various things, the train outside was screeching, an owl he saw in a book scared him or "skeletons in his closet".  That's a reference to an experience he had last Halloween, not some hidden innuendo to his past wrongs.

Joe and I did the calming thing many times and had to use the "hold the door" technique two more times, before the tide started to turn.  Now he comes to his door about once a night, usually right after I put him to bed, he cries for maybe 2 minutes and then closes the door and goes to sleep.

I feel like we're close to getting on track with both kids sleeping soon, but I've learned a very valuable lesson ... Even something as seemingly innocent as Dora can come back to bite you in the mind of a 2-year old.