Hostage situation

Let me just put this disclaimer right up front: Trying to get our son to sleep is not the same as a true life, scary as heck, hostage situation. That being said, I've been able to draw up some interesting parallels. Last night was another doozy which led to another Mickey mug kind of morning.

Our little bundle of joy took hostages in the bedtime debacle. He took control of our sleep and our sanity; two things that are becoming increasingly few and far between. We were cruising into bed time soundly after a big church meeting only to be held up at the door. Here's some of the hostage negotiation tactics we tried:

Making him think he wants to resolve this
After the first round of screaming and crying, the Mrs. remembered that we had a wonderful Tigger doll that Noah loves.She sweetly said, "Do you want to go night night with Tigger?" I smiled because I saw what she was up to. Noah considered it briefly then acquiesced. As we lowered him into his crib with his precious new best friend, he got wise to the plan and dramatically declared "no, Tigger!" The screaming began again.

Lull him into a false sense of security
After I pried the little clinger off of me and into the bed for what felt like the fiftieth time, I decided to try to capitalize on the late hour and lull him off to sleep. I began rubbing his back while he clung to me over the edge of the crib. Despite the fact that my arms were falling asleep, I persevered and began describing the bed as so warm and cozy. The cozy pillow was waiting for him and after (what felt like) an eternity, I convinced him to take a spin on the cozy pillow, cozy mattress, and cozy blanket. I think I went a little nutty and just kept repeated cozy over and over.

Cozy cozy cozy

He didn't buy it. He laid down for a minute and then the fireworks erupted once more.

The big dramatic conclusion
Unfortunately, a number of true to life hostage situations end rather dramatically and it was looking like this very minor, totally hyperbolic version was trending the same direction. We thought that perhaps he was going to have to get a little upset and that he'd ultimately give up the efforts and give in to sleep. Let me be clear, we are not advocates of "crying it out" nor are we doing anything to harm our child. A few tears on the other hand is ok once in a while.

Let's just say, it got very dramatic and very loud very quickly and this tactic didn't work.

Noah pretending to sleep.

 We ultimately ended up back on the couch with him for yet another round of sleepless checking to make sure he hadn't fallen off. We keep telling ourselves that eventually he'll be so tired that he'll fall asleep in his own bed and this will all get reset. We're going to try it all over again tonight. Here's hoping this one goes better.