It's Hard to Sleep When...

Jacob is a reasonably good sleeper most of the time. Two nights ago, we had him share a bed with Hannah because we had disassembled his room to paint it. Other than taking longer to get to sleep, the night passed without incident. I have had him sleep with me on camping trips, etc. Again, no problems. However, whenever there are other people in the house, it's like he can sense it and turns into crazy-constantly-waking-up-kid.

So, last night, the night before a race for all the adults in the house, we had a few people staying over. Both Hannah and Jacob were sharing my bed (remember, they had just slept together the previous night without incident). Jacob inexplicably woke up hour after hour and cried. He didn't want me to touch him or to console him. But neither did he want me to ignore him as he cried out my name over and over when I tried that strategy. And obviously, this crying woke up the whole house, making my reaction to it a little less sympathetic. I was getting increasingly frustrated. As the night wore on, my nerves were starting to fray because I was hyper-sensitive to every move or sound his restless little body made.

The thing that makes this whole annoying phenomenon interesting is that he did the same thing in Haliburton at Christmas. First night - we're the only guests and he sleeps beside me like a baby. Second night - 13 people in the house trying to sleep and Jacob has an internal alarm waking him every 45 minutes.

And somehow, the somewhat sheepish line of "he's not normally like this" doesn't really appease tired guests who didn't get any sleep...