Thanks

I've received so many comments on my Nightcrawlers post that there's no way I can respond to them all individually. So I'm writing this to say thanks and to clarify or elaborate on a few things.

• I think Dio is getting the right amount of sleep. He has about 12 hours at night and then 2-3 more during naps. He's definitely ready for bed when he goes down around 6:30 or 7 pm, but not so overtired that he's wired. Zari has the same sleep schedule, minus the nap.
  
• The nightcrawling began several weeks ago--long before I switched him from 2 naps to 1 last week. I did this in preparation for when we'll be in France in May and June, since we'll be out of the house doing things every morning. Plus he had just started having real troubles going down for his naps--wasn't quite tired enough, especially for the afternoon one. With just one nap, he sleeps about the same amount total as he did when he was taking two. 
• I don't think his behavior is sleepwalking/sleepcrawling. Rather, once he wakes up at night, he starts to crawl (rather than crawling and being woken up by it). 
• I am pretty doubtful that Dio has food sensitivities. I know that some people's babies truly do have them, but frankly I think that number is pretty small. Plus we have no history of food allergies in either side of the family, plus I haven't been eating anything new recently.
• My problem isn't with getting Dio to sleep. He goes down super easily for both naps and bedtime. I nurse him, lay him down, then leave the room when he's still awake. He usually babbles for a few minutes, then goes to sleep. Sometimes he fusses before he falls alseep, but that's becoming more and more rare. In one sense, he's had to CIO for naps--because I couldn't always attend to him and Zari at the same time. Since he was little, I've often had to lay him down for his nap when he was still very much awake to help Zari with something. He learned pretty quickly how to fall asleep on his own by necessity! One of the hidden blessings of a second child: they learn to be more adaptable than the first! Like I mentioned earlier, Zari never once fell asleep without nursing until she was 18+ months.
• I am reluctant to totally night-wean for several reasons. The top two are that I enjoy the comfort and contact, and that I really really enjoy my lactation-induced amenorrhea. I suspect that if I night-weaned, my period would come back much sooner. Of course, if that's what he naturally falls into, I probably wouldn't force him to nurse at night!
• Dio is super, super sensitive to any type of stimulation when he's sleeping. The slightest noise will disturb him. The less I can bother him, the better. So no diaper changes (yay for Fuzzibunz!), no rocking or patting, etc. He's been staying in his own room and bed all night for several days now, and I think it's been helping. When we do go in to calm him down, we lie down beside him and gently hold him down until he relaxes and falls asleep again. 
• Last night's sleep schedule went like this: bedtime around 7 pm, Eric settled him down at midnight, I nursed him around 3:30 am, and he woke up at 7 am. It was the first time he didn't wake up at 5 am, which was quite nice. I think I'm going to start using this schedule (ie, not nursing at midnight, but waiting until the next waking, since that seemed to help eliminate the extra 5 am waking). 

I know, I know: this is all so boring. So on to something that made me smile:

Two days ago at naptime, after Dio was jumping in his crib when he was supposed to be sleeping, I came back in his room, laid down on my bed, and read a book. The next time he started to get up, I said sternly, "Uh uh uh, lie down." His head hit the pillow immediately. When he tried getting up again, I repeated my statement. He dove for his pillow again. It became very obvious that he knew exactly what I meant! And actually, that night, he slept very well. I woke up with a start at 1:41 am and realized that he hadn't woken up yet. I checked on him and he was sleeping peacefully on his stomach. And then I lay in bed for an hour unable to sleep. And then finally, I got up and nursed him just so *I* could get back to sleep!

He's better at getting back down from standing or crawling to lying back down, and it seems to have helped his nightcrawling quite a bit. We've found him sleeping on his stomach a lot the last few days, something he's never done before. So perhaps we're on the tail end of the nightcrawling?