Is this the villian in our sleep drama?

Now, I am not fully prepared to lay the entire blame at the feet of this innocuous looking crib mobile. However, we figured out pretty early on that Aiden was a bit spooked by the animals during the night. He was completely mesmerized by them during the day, but what was a cool colorful display during the daylight hours became weird shadow figures hanging above his head at night.

So the animals came down weeks ago, but we thought nothing of leaving the ark itself up. It is a wind up music player, and he seemed to like the music alright. But a couple of nights ago I caught Aiden staring wide eyed up at the boat, and I thought perhaps we needed to try life without the mobile at all for a bit.

Now I won't say that Aiden's sleep has greatly improved over the past two nights, but he has definitely gotten us up fewer times than previously. This could be due to taking down the mobile, or it could just be the effect of the change in his rice cereal patterns finally kicking in.

At the end of the day, we may never know what works and what doesn't. But for now, it seems that this playful looking children's toy may have been a part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Let's hope that with this villainous toy out of the way the baby will continue to sleep better uninfluenced by strange shadow figures above his head.