Charlie is having a sleepover at marmar's house this weekend. Everyone else is home too, so there were no spare beds which meant that Charlie had to sleep in his travel cot in our room. He wasn't impressed with this arrangement until I told him that when it was morning we'd be right there with him and he could climb into our bed. This seemed acceptable and he was happier to lie down and go to sleep.
We crept quietly into our room several hours later, trying really hard not to make any noise and wake him up and using the light from our phone screens to see what we were doing. No problem, job done.
Robert was having one of his restless nights and ended up going downstairs to sleep on the sofa bed, leaving me and Charlie on our own.
I was drifting off to sleep when I heard a noise from Charlie's cot. He seemed to be mumbling something in his sleep. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but he went quiet, so I tried to relax again. I must have fallen asleep for a while, but not for long, when I heard Charlie again. He was saying "stop, stop". I wondered what he was dreaming about and hoped it wasn't a bad dream. Anyway, back to sleep again.
"Stop, stop, stop doing that"
I didn't say anything because I didn't want to wake him up, but was beginning to think I wouldn't be getting much sleep if he was going to be having dreams like this all night.
Back to sleep again, then, "Stop it marmar". Was he dreaming about me? "Shhh Charlie, go back to sleep"
I was trying hard to ignore this but it carried on. Charlie currently has a way of speaking where he makes a one syllable word into a two syllable word by emphasising the last letter, so he was now saying "stop, stop, stooooop", with the p being the second syllable all on its own, over and over.
By now I was getting concerned, but I was also tired, so was still trying to sleep. Couldn't ignore it any longer when he started saying "you're going to wake everybody up, you're going to wake everybody up". He didn't sound like he was talking in his sleep now, so I asked him what the matter was.
"You're going to wake everyone up marmar"
"How am I going to wake everyone up?"
"With your really loud snoring!"
Wow, didn't see that one coming. Poor child must have been trying to get me to shut up for quite a while because he was sounding rather fed up by now. I was stopping him from getting to sleep, not the other way around.
"Don't worry Charlie, I won't wake everyone up. Go back to sleep"
"Okay"
