Way back in the day, when the Peanut was potty training, he actually was night time trained before he was daytime trained.  He is the soundest sleeper ever and at night he would half wake up screaming.  For awhile we thought it was night terrors.  He would scream and cry but never even open his eyes.  Because he wouldn't fully wake up he could never respond to our questions and let us know what was wrong.  Eventually he would calm down and go back to sleep.  The next morning he wouldn't remember.  I'm not sure how we eventually figured out to take him to the potty.  I guess we noticed that he was also wiggling around and decided to give it a try.  He was wearing a diaper at night so he would half wake up having to pee.  He would scream and cry then pee and go back to sleep.  Once we figured it out we just took him to the potty and he would pee and then go happily back to bed.  He would never fully wake up through it all.  We were then able to put him in underwear at night and he never had a nighttime accident unless for some reason we were too slow getting him to the bathroom.

Eventually he grew out of this phase and would wake up on his own and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without assistance.  Every once in a while when extra tired he would have a repeat and wake up screaming.  These occurrences were pretty rare so, many times, they threw us off.  We would forget and would waste time trying to figure out what was wrong.  Lesson learned.  If he wakes up screaming, potty first, questions second.

Recently he has been experiencing a relapse.  I have kind of wondered if it had something to do with my being pregnant.  More specifically, since I already wake up twice a night having to pee myself and the Princess sometimes wakes up having to pee and still needs assistance, why not add a forth nightly bathroom trip.  You know, to help prepare me for the all nighters once the baby is born.

Now he seems to have outgrown the screaming and instead rocks back and forth whimpering.  Again, his eyes don't open.  The Princess will wake up to the whimpering and drag herself out of bed, make her way to my room, wake me up and tell me that the Peanut needs to go potty.  She then slumps back into bed and happily drifts back to dreamland while I wake him up and get him to the bathroom.

This was happening every night and I was really starting to wonder what had caused this sudden relapse.

Then he dropped the bombshell on me.


One night I guess the Princess had enough.  Instead of waking me up and telling me to go help the Peanut, she simply walked into our room and crawled into bed with us.  I figured she must have had a nightmare or something.  A few minutes later the Peanut started yelling for me.  When I walked into his room he told me the Princess was supposed to get me.  He had to go potty.

Wait... He had actually been waking up and sending her to get me?!

What?

If he is awake then why isn't he just getting up and going to the bathroom by himself like he was doing for a year or more?

As it turns out, a tiny red light is to blame.

That's right.  A teeny tiny little red LED.

It's the little light in the motion sensor.
 The one that lights up when you walk past.  

"Oh, hello.  I see you."

He is afraid of it.

Terrified.

Now, this motion sensor has been there his entire life.  Day and night.  Why the sudden fear?  Why has he been getting up and walking past it for more than a year at night and not even noticed it but now is so terrified of it he would rather pee the bed than walk past it?!

Imagine my frustration when all this came to light.  Yes, that's right.  He has been waking up his poor sleepy sister, sending her to wake up his grouchy, sleep deprived, pregnant mother, just so I can walk him past the little red light.  And I have been falling for it for months!

We finally figured out why this is suddenly happening.  I have a little lamp on my desk.  For awhile we had been leaving it on at night.  We figured it would be good to have a little light in the house in case the kids did wake up in the middle of the night.  That way they didn't trip or anything on their way to the bathroom.  At some point this little lamp got unplugged.  It's kind of a pain to get to the outlet to plug it back in so I never bothered.  We really didn't think anything of it.  I guess without the extra light he finally noticed that tiny red light that has always been there.

Don't get me wrong.  I get it.  One second it isn't there and then suddenly, the minute you move, it lights up. Creepy!

So, we started leaving a light on during the night.  This seemed to be working.

Until last night.

Again the poor Princess was sent to get me.

Again there was her brother patiently waiting to be walked to the bathroom.

I pointed out that we left the light on for him.

But he knows the red light is there now.

Watching him.

During the day it's fine.

But at night.

Well at night everything is more menacing, isn't it?

Sigh.