Matilda was a horrible sleeper until around age 4 and I swore the universe owed me a good sleeper. And we (mostly) had that with Madman. That is until we moved him to a toddler bed last spring. I was determined to keep in his crib until age 3 but he figured out how to climb out shortly after he turned 2 so the crib came down and the toddler bed went in. We haven’t slept since.

He goes to bed just fine, but around 4 AM he decides it’s a great time to get up and play. He doesn’t cry or demand our attention which is a nice change from Matilda’s old, clingy habits. What he does, however, was worse. He quietly destroys his room.

(FYI: you can assume that most of these photos were taken between 2 and 6 AM)

Or he would gather every toy in the room and bring it into bed with him. Do you know how jarring it is to wake up at 3:27 AM to the sound of wooden blocks crashing together?

Sometimes we would actually sleep through the mayhem in the room next to ours and find him like this in the morning:

Or we’d find him asleep on the floor somewhere which I don’t mind. Except for when he falls asleep right behind his door and we can’t open it without hitting him.

It got to the point that even with naps, I would always go into his room with my camera ready because I’d never know where I would find him.

Most of these issues we’ve solved by putting his dresser, toys and books into his closet where he can’t get them. He still gets up daily around 4 AM, but Mark can usually get him to fall back to sleep for a couple of hours. But he’s always been an early riser and we know that we can’t just let him play alone or he’ll cause a major mess (he picks at his diaper through his PJs and will shred it, polymer balls everywhere! such fun!). So when Madman is up, one of us is up – no matter how early. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped going into his room with my camera ready to go. You just never know when you’ll find a swashbuckling cowboy at 6:45 AM.