No Yike Me Bed

For almost 3 years now we have been trying to get Ryan to A) sleep in his own bed, and B) stay asleep all night in his bed. And what solution have we come up with after 3 years? Absolutely nothing.

There are many reasons why I view Ryan's sleeping habits as a "problem", but here is the main one: it ruins our evenings. In order to get him to fall asleep in his bed, one of us (usually Adam if he's home early enough) has to lay in Ryan's bed with him until he falls asleep. If he starts the process by about 8pm, it will probably take 1.5 to 2 hours. By this time Adam has fallen asleep in Ryan's bed and his evening is gone. No time to do anything else. (Adam get up at 5am for work) And even after all of that, Ryan is awake and climbing into our bed by midnight. Sometimes we are too exhausted to spend the 2 hours getting him to fall asleep, so we just let him sleep in our bed from the beginning. But this means he doesn't go to bed until we do, so he ends up staying up too late, which means he is cranky in the morning. It's a lose-lose for all of us.

Last night was particularly rough. I got Lucas to sleep at 8pm and Adam went into Ryan's room with him to put him to bed. I can see Ryan's room on the baby monitor and by 9:30pm I could see that he was still awake and whining/crying. Adam came out of his room and said he was too frustrated to continue. So I went in there to try to calm down Ryan. As soon as I sat next to him on his bed and asked him what was bothering him, he burst into tears. The kind where he is crying so hard that it's difficult to breathe. I thought to myself, "maybe he's afraid of something?". We've tried nightlights but they don't seem to help. When I finally got him to calm down and talk to me, here's what he said.

Me: Ryan, why don't you want to sleep in your bed?
Ryan: I no yike me bed.
Me: Why? Your bed is very nice.
Ryan: No, me bed is no nice. I no yuv me bed.
Me: Ryan, you need to sleep in your bed.
Ryan: Me sleep in Mommy's bed with Mommy.
Me: But who will sleep in your bed?
Ryan: Daddy sleep in me bed.
Me: No, Daddy sleeps in Mommy and Daddy's bed. Ryan sleeps in Ryan's bed.
Ryan: I no yike me bed. I want to put my bed outside on the grass.
Me: Oh no! Why would we put your bed on the grass?? We can't do that.
Ryan: I want the fast wind to blow away my bed.

So what did I learn from this? Well, he obviously doesn't like his bed.

And that's all I've got.