Thursday night, Real Man and I had been hanging out and chatting before he had to leave for hockey, around 10 pm.
Eventually, he got ready to go and headed downstairs.
And came right back up.
“You have to come see this,” he said.
So, I got out of bed and followed him downstairs into the room we call either “the library,” “the reading room,” “the music room,” or “mom’s room.”
And there, curled up on the leather couch was Baby Monkey, sound asleep.
Baby Monkey has a history of sleep-walking, and we’ve always assumed it was something related to the nystagmus (eye shaking episodes) he has.
However, he can usually be found in the bathroom or in our room, and he has NEVER traveled the stairs.
So, to find him downstairs was more than a little disconcerting.
Real Man picked him up to take him back to bed (all the research we’ve done says it IS okay to wake a sleepwalker) and he woke up wild-eyed and confused. We told him to close his eyes and go back to sleep and when we got him back to his bed, he was sound asleep, once again.
I, of course, didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.
I started Googling sleepwalking and found some amazing things.
Did you know there are cases of people cooking a full meal while sleepwalking?
Of getting in their cars and driving places while sleepwalking?
Crazy!
Scary!
My hope is that he outgrows this and that just because it’s progressed to stair walking doesn’t mean that next time it will progress to him leaving the house.
I’m certainly not going to lock him in his room, but maybe we’ll actually have to invest in baby gates for the first time.
Because, all I can think about is Baby’s little body, sprawled on the slate, stone floor of the foyer at the bottom of the stairs.
Because, I’m a world champion worrier.
So, I’ll be sleeping a little lighter (if that’s even possible) and eventually I’ll remember that it’s been months since he did this before, and it will likely be months before he’ll do it again, and all the research that I’ve done says that kids usually outgrow it.
Eventually.
Hey, I emailed, texted and talked on the phone in my sleep for about a month in 2005. It was December of 2005, I know this because I had a 2 hour conversation with my sister when she was at the hospital, because she just gave birth to Amanda. I remember none of this, but she swears we were on the phone for 2 hours. It was stress related……I was going through my divorce at the time. LOL
Comment by Jen — October 20, 2012 @ 8:10 am |
Yeah, Baby’s divorce is stressing him out, too. 🙂
Comment by abozza — October 20, 2012 @ 9:11 am |
I am notorious for my ‘episodes’. Anyone in the house immediately understands my level of stress based on the level of fright I create when they occur. I usually catch myself, or ‘become aware’ at some point.
Last night, I woke up, sitting on the edge of my bed, light on, with the top cut out of avocado, and I was spooning out the content and eating it.
From my experience though, you don’t want to confine him. He is going to go downstairs- he’ll go. With or without barriers. You don’t want him climbing over a gate. You can get door alarms. But, unless he does anything other than wander & go back to sleep, I wouldn’t recommend doing anything to prevent him.
Comment by Carla — October 21, 2012 @ 9:32 am |
No, I wasn’t thinking about confining him. My biggest worry is that he’ll leave the house.
Comment by abozza — October 21, 2012 @ 12:41 pm |
When Derek was under 1, I had gotten him out of his crib & was running down the steps to get him out of the house (we were being bombed & I was getting him out of the crumbling house) – I ‘came to’ when I was about 4-5 steps down. Turned around, put him in bed & went back to sleep.
Comment by Carla — October 21, 2012 @ 9:34 am |
WOW! That’s unreal! Some of the stories I read online were really unbelievable.
Comment by abozza — October 21, 2012 @ 12:40 pm |
To this day I can clearly remember sleepwalking, fully dressed in the latest blazer, right out of our apt–must have been in 7th or 8th grade!!! Good thing my mother always read late into the night and was sitting near the apt door or who knows where I would have gone! I would be certain to add an extra lock to the front door, up high, so he cannot get outside.
Comment by Carla — October 21, 2012 @ 1:13 pm |
That’s an excellent idea!
Comment by abozza — October 21, 2012 @ 1:51 pm |
Shannon cooked full meals and was eating them overnight while sleepwalking on the Gene Simmons show. She gained weight and didn’t understand how/why. She always woke up to a messy kitchen and got frustrated enough to check the cameras and saw it was HER! Poor thing. (don’t know if you watch that show)
Comment by myliladventures — November 5, 2012 @ 10:36 pm |
Get out! I’ve never seen it, but that’s amazing!
Comment by abozza — November 6, 2012 @ 8:12 am |