Holding my breath

Last night I came home from a shopping trip with a friend and found Samuel asleep. It was only around 9, so I figured it was a nap and he'd be up past midnight now. But he didn't wake up until 10:45. He sat up and jibber-jabbered like he'd had an energy drink! Oh man, I thought we were in trouble. But within a couple of minutes, he was back asleep.
Sam slept all night. From 8:30pm to 6:45am.

I don't know if you get the significance of this. Sam doesn't go to sleep before midnight. Almost ever, for the last year or more. He had some weird problems at night that we couldn't get diagnosed, and he would wake up screaming around midnight for hours, unless we turned on the Justice League for him. He wouldn't sleep, but at least the screaming would stop. Eventually we quit trying to get him to sleep until after midnight and the screaming episode would be over. That seemed to get us to bed earlier, so we took it. Of course, that meant sleeping in, so we had to keep Trinity on our schedule, too, so she wouldn't be up without supervision.

Now that the screaming problems have come to an end, we have been stuck with the schedule. We can't get him past it. I guess we haven't tried overly hard, but we have tried.

Then last night, it changed. For no apparent reason. He has been getting up at 9am lately instead of 11-12. But his early bedtime was still shocking.

I am really hoping this is a start to a long and happy new routine. We got him down for a 1pm nap, which would be a perfect time for a normal schedule, and sent him to the park this afternoon, so we are hoping for a repeat performance tonight.

One thing that was so wonderful is that Sam has not been going to Sunday School because we have to wake him a bit early on Sunday's and he hasn't had enough sleep, so he doesn't want to be away from me. Today, he walked right into class, with a different teacher, and played and played, no problems even through church.

Ahhhhh.............. finally!