For the past couple months, TJ has been having nightmares. He will randomly wake up crying and screaming and we have to fight to get him back to sleep.
Last night opened a new chapter in our bedtime drama....sleepwalking. I woke Ayron up at 2:30 because I could hear TJ talking in his room. Ayron went into TJ's bedroom and found him wandering around the room looking lost. Ayron picked him up, and tried to understand what TJ was saying, but couldn't figure it out. TJ began to whimper, so Ayron brought him into our room. When Ayron put him on the bed and told him to crawl over by me, TJ proceeded to crawl into the wall, at least 3 times. Progressively harder each time. He hit his head every time and seemed to grow more frustrated. The last "head met wall" incident caused the dog to stir and bark (he thought someone was outside) and it rattled the pictures hung on the other side of the wall. We had to fight with the sleeping TJ to get him to lay down. I ended up wrapping him in his blanket and then pinning him in between Ayron and I. We kept him in our bed until we realized that he had finally truly woken up and realized he was safe. He easily went back to his bed at that point and slept until 9 this morning.
I am not surprised that he is a sleepwalker. Ayron was, I was too. Heck my sister once left the house and attempted to climb the front tree in her sleep. I always remember my mom asking me if I had to go potty. She would take me into the bathroom, make me sit on the toilet. Then she would tell me to go to bed. They finally linked mine back to caffeine consumption late in the day. Once they stopped that, my sleepwalking diminished. I once read that sleepwalkers are often looking for the bathroom. Seeing as how TJ hates his potty chair, I am assuming that theory doesn't hold true for last nights events.
Ayron once "awoke" in the middle of the night, grabbed my arms and pinned me to the bed and screamed, "WHAT IS YOUR LOT NUMBER?!" This was during a stressful auction at Kruse. I was terrified. What the heck was I gonna do against a sleeping (yet partially awake) man who is a foot taller than me and weighs 340lbs? I quickly said a random number. That seemed to appease the dreaming Ayron and he rolled over and went back to bed. He doesn't remember this incident. I have caught him auctioning in his sleep a couple of times too.
So what do I do with TJ? Isn't there some old rule about "Never waking a sleepwalker"? He was just so determined and it took both of us to pin him down and prevent him from actually denting the wall with his head. I have to wonder if he woke up with a headache this morning. As I think about last evening, he didn't witness anything scary. We had dinner with friends, walked around a car show, had some more friends over, and he went to bed.
What's the best way to handle a sleepwalker who is only 2 1/2 years old?
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