Night Night, Night Light

So seems to be the past few weeks while we were on our Christmas break, Mason was going to bed later than usual, once he was asleep he was fine, but it was getting to sleep was the issue. We'd do our usual routine, nothing out of the ordinary, he'd gladly walk into his room, give kisses, turn out the light and "WAHHHHHHHHH!" For the past year almost, he's been going to sleep on his own just fine, and RARELY (we're talking blue moon) that he'd have to cry it out, never for very long thankfully. We thought it was just some phase he was going through of fighting sleep/not wanting to go to bed, etc- so we fought on this for about 2 weeks thinking he'd just outgrow it. I even started dreading bedtime and thinking we've got to get thru this before we even introduce a big boy bed! Two nights he cried so hard, we'd go in there to calm him down and he'd say "up peeeeez" (sob sob) if we'd pick him up he'd say, "Out....rock rock" so twice I had to rock him to sleep, which we haven't done in over 10 months!! YIKES! after that, I decided something had to change...so one night i decided i'd let him play with the flashlight to see if that would keep him entertained long enough before falling asleep and it worked, he was asleep within 5 minutes with the flashlight. so after draining our stock of batteries (apparently the one small flashlight we have drains batteries FAST....or could it be the constant on/off..on/off..it just can't take it!) 

We do have a night light in his room that is pretty dim and we've been using that since, after he falls asleep we'll turn it off, but it gets pretty hot, so of course I worry about it being a fire hazard. 

So NOW on to the search for a night light that is safe to keep on, or even find one that has a built in timer! The last few nights have been so easy at bedtime, tonight Mason was even blowing us kisses as we walked out of his room- so clearly our 2 year old has adopted a fear of the dark! (isn't he too young for that??)