Hayden does not like thunderstorms. In particular, he does not like to be woken up by lightning and thunder. We can get some pretty strong thunder storms in Indiana, and as it happens many of them pass through after he has gone to bed. When he is awoken by thunder and lightning he will start crying, and John or I will go into his room to try to comfort him. John likes to tell him the clouds are having a party. I usually talk about how he is safe, his room is in a really protected part of the house, and I try to think of something that might make it less scary, like last night I put his quilt over his head and asked if he felt safer if he couldn’t see the lightning. Usually, we just have to spend some time with him and he feels better. But, naturally, he doesn’t want us to leave even once he has calmed down, so when we tell him we need to go back to our bed he will ask, “Can I cry?” Bless his little heart. We tell him of course he can cry if that makes him feel better, but we ask him to try to do it quietly so it doesn’t wake up Layla (otherwise he can really get wailing pretty loudly). It is just so sweet how he will not be crying and he will ask us if it is ok to start, like he has it all planned out.
This asking permission to cry thing also sometimes works when we are out. There have been times when he has been on the verge of throwing a fit but I’ve asked him to just wait until we get home and then he can throw a big fit once we are there. So now sometimes if he is unhappy about something when we are out he will pout about it and tell me that he wants to throw a fit when we get home.
Back to the storm – Layla is a pretty light sleeper, generally. It seems like the slightest noises can wake her up. Unless there is a huge storm with lightning and really loud thunder, in which case she will sleep soundly. The only thing that really wakes her up in that scenario is Hayden crying. Last night we had an incredibly loud storm come through. The thunder and rain were so loud that even when John or I weren’t in Hayden’s room trying to comfort him it was still hard to sleep through it. But we didn’t hear a sound from Layla all night. Peculiar.
Hayden and Layla's Place 