A memory from 2006

Captain Earthquake has been waking up at night. Okay, well, he wakes up every night, multiple times. He comes and gets me to tuck him back in.

Sometimes its once a night, rarely he sleeps through, and often it’s multiple wake ups. Several nights ago I could not sleep so I went out to the living room to watch tv. Was just drifting off when I heard an odd pounding noise. Sounded like a rumble of thunder. 5 seconds later the Captain was on his way to get me.

The noise freaked me out a little bit…didn’t sound like anything the house would make. Fortunately (or not) the Captain woke me up 4 or 5 more times in quick succession over the next hour or so. Didn’t take me long to realize that he was making the noise. I couldn’t figure out what he was hitting with his feet, but it was definitely a pounding noise.

Over the past few nights I’ve had my ear tuned to it and sure enough, there’s pounding every time he gets up. I told Hubby last night that I’d love to set up a camera and get that on film, just to know what he’s doing and why. I asked the little guy the first night I heard it but he wouldn’t tell me what was going on. We have deduced that he’s stomping on the floor, both feet real fast, kind of like running in place. He does it when he gets mad at me (very hard to keep a straight face when that happens, lol) so we’re pretty sure that’s what it looks like.

Fast forward to this morning, Hubby says proudly “I know why the Captain is pounding his feet”. Apparently he went down and laid on the little boys’ bedroom floor to
get the wandering one to stay in bed (and not wake me up again) and he saw the stomping and asked why. This time, we got an answer.

The pajamas that the Captain was wearing were one-piece and the legs only go down to mid calf. (Yeah, yeah, I know. I gotta buy bigger ones.) Turns out the Captain can’t stand it when the pajamas slide up on his legs and feel tight. His solution: get out of bed and stomp until they fall down, then wake up mama to tuck him back in.

I cannot TELL you how much time and effort I have put into wondering why the kid won’t sleep the night through. Holy cow!!! And all this time, it was the pj’s??? Tonight he’s wearing pants with the biggest legs I could find. So far he hasn’t gotten up. We’ll see how it goes. I’d love to sleep all night long even two nights in a row! Mystery solved.

Story update: It’s the summer of 2007 when I’m posting this on the blog, and the Captain still gets up every night. It’s better than it used to be. 🙂 He’s quite the violent sleeper and kicks all of his covers off in the night. He had a tonsillectomy earlier this year, and that did improve some of the wakings (and reduced snoring a lot) but he still kicks those blankets off routinely. In fact, it’s his sleeping behavior that earned him the name Captain Earthquake in the first place. I had a temporary solution when I clipped his sheets and quilt to the wall side of the mattress, but my clip failed and I haven’t been able to find a better one yet. I’ll be hunting for one soon.

Earnest Parenting: advice for parents with toddlers who won’t stay in bed.