E is a high needs baby/toddler. Everything he does is done very thoroughly and with intensity. He’s been like this from day one. I shouldn’t be surprised. Intense is something that is used to describe me quite regularly.

Lately, E has been waking up in the middle of the night. I used the term, “waking up” loosely. Waking up implies that he actually went to sleep. He talks to himself for a long time and then starts to cry around 10 or 11.

E has had his share of health problems, so we have been pretty loose with the sleep training up until now because generally when he is not sleeping at night, it is for a reason. He is teething, or he has an ear infection, or he ate something he shouldn’t have. Now, he is crying just because he wants to be with me. Which is cute in theory, but at 2 am, not so cute. He is stubborn, which is also coincidentally a word that is thrown at me often as well.

The first few times he started the crying, I would take him out, give him pain reliever, make sure he was okay and he would just laugh and run around. Clearly not in pain. I would put him back in his crib and he would scream and scream and scream.

We’ve tried changing around his nap time, his bed time, his awake time. The conclusion is just that he is stubborn. He knows we are awake, and he wants to be too.

Another theory is that he wants to cement his place as youngest child.

Just as we tried every sleep book for him as a newborn, we have tried every sleep book for him as a 20 month old. We have tried going in at intervals, we have tried not going in at intervals. We have tried like said above, changing around sleep times. We have tried bedtime routines. The result is always the same. Hours of crying.

He does eventually stop crying and go to sleep. And this phase will in turn eventually stop too. That is one thing I have learned. Everything does pass.