I may lose my mind...

The two nights before we went to the mountains to help Bethany with Bryan's kids, Marcus woke up crying in the middle of the night. Both times Mark went in his room and rubbed his back and he fell back to sleep. When I was at my parent's house, Marcus woke up crying and wouldn't go back to sleep. At home I would have let him cry himself back to sleep, but in this situation we had 4 other kids within ear shot so I couldn't. I finally put him in bed with me. The next night he slept with me again. When we came home from the mountains we put Marcus back in his room, he woke up crying multiple times during the night. My mind is so foggy I don't remember how it progressed, but I know we tried letting him cry it out, we had him sleep on a mattress in our room, we tried sleeping in his room, etc. He would not cry it out, the crying never stopped, and when he would fall asleep he always woke up every 2 hours on the dot. He refused to stay in his room, and would come into the hallway screaming. It finally progressed to the point where he had to fall asleep in my arms. All this time he is not getting more than 6-7 hours of sleep at night and refusing to fall asleep during nap time. This is the same child who was used to getting a 2 hour nap and 10-12 hours of sleep at night. Finally we moved Addy into a different room (onto a big girl bed). Also, during this same time, Mark's work picked up like crazy and his average come home time was 11pm, with some nights him staying later. Mark never made me deal with it by myself during the night, but just dealing with cranky Marcus by myself during the day was pushing me over the edge. Everyone in the family was suffering from lack of sleep. The crowning moment was when I decided that he was going to have to be locked in his room and cry it out. I tried to switch the doorknob around on his bedroom door so I could lock it from the outside and somehow broke the whole thing. Mark got home really late that night and we decided to turn on our fan to see if we could sleep through him crying. ***remember we are extremely sleep deprived and desperate at this point*** At the same time I pulled our bathroom door shut and it just happened to be locked...the next morning, after about 4 hours of sleep, Mark tried to take the doorknob off. Long story short we couldn't get the door open. Mark couldn't get ready for work, but had to be in early. Only desperate prayer finally got the bathroom door open. I finally bought some Melatonin, which helped Marcus fall asleep at night, but he was still waking up 3 hours later and then crying the rest of the night. At this point I am imagining all the things that could be wrong with him so I called the doctor. They told me to lock him in his room and let him cry it out that night and bring him in the next day. We tried to let him cry it out, but at 2:30am and 4 1/2 hours of crying I gave up. Everything was normal at the doctor. They had no idea what was going on. They agreed with me that the first waking was maybe night terrors but didn't understand why he was crying the rest of the night. When I told them about my experience with him crying for 4 1/2 hours they told me to just go in every time he cried and calm him down. To try that for a week and check back in. Obviously they were not the ones that had not slept for 2 1/2 weeks. But I committed to try it. That night after sleeping from 7:30-10:30pm Marcus decided to wake up every 30 mins. After just two times of getting up with him, Mark and I both said screw it and moved him into our room on a mattress on the floor. He has slept in our room for the past week. He did sleep, without night terrors even. The first morning he woke up so happy because he hadn't had that much sleep in soooo long. It has been great for him, but not so great for me and Mark because Marcus is a LOUD sleeper and now has a cough so he wakes us up a least a few times a night. BUT... miracle of all miracles, he said he was going to sleep in his room last night by himself, and he did. He woke up a few times, but went back to sleep each time with a pat on his back. Here's to hoping that the nights will soon be filled with uninterrupted sleep. (And that Mark's work will slow down so he can come home and hang out with me.) And P.S. all of this has taught us that neither Mark nor I can handle getting up every few hours at night, so I guess 3 kids is the perfect number!!!