When I was 5 years old I woke up with my head at the foot of the bed holding a lamp…on multiple occasions. I was a crazy sleeper. I would scream, laugh, yell, and talk in my sleep pretty much every night. I would also roll so much that—after falling out of the bed multiple times—my parents had to keep a railing on my bed. This railing remained there until I was [gulp] in college (to be fair, it was only on my bed in college because I was on the top bunk, and I feared for my life if I fell out of bed).
Like my love of pasta, I’ve passed my crazy sleep patterns on to my 2-year-old. Most nights she is calm until about 1am, when she acts like she is awake with either screaming, laughing, talking, or yelling. But she is COMPLETELY asleep. It’s funny now, but just imagine hearing some of these things at 1am:
“Don’t come near meeee!” Who?! This one always has me checking the monitor in fear there is someone actually there. I think about scary movies when the kid sees ghosts, and then I’m up for the night.
“That’s mine.” She has used this one many times for many different objects, “That’s my ball, that’s my cookie, that’s my spoon…”
“B-I-N-G-O…and Bingo was his name-o.” The songs are always my favorite. This is a new one she started singing. The classics are “Row-Row Your Boat” and “Ring Around the Rosie.”
“AHHHHHH!” Random shrieks. We recently had out-of-town guests over. I should have warned them about the sleep talking. They had some questions the next morning about the crazy screams in the middle of the night.
Whispers to her stuffed animals while SITTING UP. Hearing her talk is one thing. Seeing her sit up and talk to her stuffed animals through the video monitor is a little creepy. I try and hear what she’s saying, but I normally only get pieces, like “Okay, Pooh,” or “You need to listen.” These midnight meetings are a mystery to me.
Something I learned the hard way is to not go into her room and try to wake her during one of her talking/walking episodes. If I wake her up, she’s up for good. It’s better to let her chat it out.
And, you can be rest assured, I plan to keep her in the crib as long as possible, so I don’t find her cuddling the lamp just yet.
Do any of your little ones talk in their sleep? What do they say or do?