Most people call them dreams but Wyatt calls them sleep stories. Stories that happen while you are sleeping – Wyatt is very literal.
After months of sleeping all night every night and occasionally sleeping until 7:30 on the weekends, Wyatt started waking up at night again. Last week he was up 3 nights in a 5 day stretch. Each night he came in the room, climbed in bed with me and immediately went back to sleep. After one of those nights I asked him why he was coming to see me tonight and this is what he said. “There was a scary spider in my sleep story and I wanted it to go away so I had to open my eyes. And when I opened my eyes I was still scared so I had to run to you fast so I wouldn’t be scared any more.”
This evening I decided to rest with Wyatt while he fell asleep and he wanted a story. I didn’t feel like getting a book so I made up a story – Once upon a time there was a little boy named Wyatt… At the end he asked for another one and I told him it was his turn to tell me a story. He started slowly and talked about Wyatt and Mama going somewhere fun and continued to tell more stories about Wyatt and Mama and then finally he said “my favorite sleep story is when Mama and Wyatt went to the store and bought Legos and then went home and played with them.”
Real or imagined Wyatt’s favorite sleep stories are his ideal life – Wyatt and Mama spending time together and doing fun things. After the final story my sweet boy snuggled close and drifted off to sleep.
