Deal or No Deal?

Anybody watch the show Deal or No deal?

Aiden is SOOO active right now. He is into EVERYTHING! He can obviously sit up on his own and he is trying so hard to pull up and so we have lowered both his crib and pack n' play. The downside to this is that he just sits and plays at nap time and bed time. I put him down to SLEEP and he ends up just sitting up and playing which is ok for about 10 minutes and then he realizes he doesn't like being in the little cage (for lack of a better word) and starts screaming and crying for someone to come and release him. So I have started pleading and bargaining with my 7 month old. I actually find myself giving him little talks and they go something like "you're gonna lay down and take a nap and you will feel so much better when you get up and then we will play" and then I put him down and walk to the door all the time thinking..."deal?" and then he starts screaming and crying and I hear in my head "NO DEAL!" Then we try again with a different offer...."aiden you want to have a little bit of a bottle? and then you can take a nap and mommy will get ready and when you wake up we will do _______" ok ready..."deal?" again with the screaming and crying "NO DEAL!" You get the idea. The other night Aiden was awake every 20-30 minutes and he hasn't done that in FOREVER! I tried everything to make him go back to sleep, I offered all I had and we still could not make a deal. At 4 am when the baby refuses to sleep I can tell you that makes for some edgy parents. I walk back into our room and tell ben "I just don't know what to do". Ben says feed him... now all of my parenting know how comes back to me and I'm like ya know you're really not supposed to do that because he is NOT hungry, he is never hungry in the middle of the night and feeding him now could lead to a really bad habit...blah blah blah. Needless to say we went ahead and gave him the bottle...what else can you do at 4 am? Then when that didn't work....I put my final offer on the table. "OK you can come and sleep in bed with mommy and daddy if you will just PLEASE GO TO SLEEP." And then somewhere around 5 am we finally had a DEAL! Now again with the know how....I know that is a HORRIBLE habit to start but again what are you gonna do? Last night was much better and hopefully we won't be dealing with nights like that again but Aiden is still very much struggling with nap time. He wants to play, not nap and that equals fussy baby and unhappy mommy. Hopefully it is only a phase.

This is what I go in and find after I have put him down for a nap!

This is my little sleeping angel (please don't wake up) after we have both fought the good fight!