Ahhhhh to sleep ...perchance to dream.....

JP and I have had many sleep battles. He does co-sleep with us, but sometimes it's still very hard to get him to sleep. Joe has no problem lying down with him until he drifts off. But hey..let;s face it.. that's because Joe's only priority is to sleep himslef. I however, have to still get many things done. Today JP and I took a late nap because I was tired. I think we woke up around 6pm. Because of this I didn't start to settle JP down till 8:30, and expected him to fall asleep btwn 9 and 9:30. Silly me. He was tired. He was on the very edge of sleep. But he would not let go and fall asleep. He did this to me over the weekend and it's so frustrating. You know he wants to sleep and is almost there, but it's like he's fighting it with every tired fiber of his body. I finally sat up on the edge of the bed and then he started pushing at me with his legs. A new thing that drives me crazy no matter when he does it. I left the bedroom and went into the kitchen to start cleaning up for the night. He wakes up fully and decided it was play time. At this point I put him in his crib. This is not an unusual thing as he generally naps in there. However I used to work with him to get him to sleep better back in the early winter. This involved many times of lying him down again, reassuring him when he cries, etc. Not a pleasant experience for either and since I know Joe won't work with me on this I gave up. I don't want JP to associate it with punishment and a mean mommy. I should add that 'most' nights he does drift off within 20 minutes without a huge fight. Back to tonight. I put him in his crib and he was lying down kicking his legs for a few minutes. Then he got up and started to bounce. I went in and lied him down and told him it was bedtime.. then partially shut the door. This was not something he liked and he started to cry. I sighed to myself and set a timer for 5 minutes for the first break, 2 minutes later all was quiet. I was afraid to look in the room and waited 10 more minutes. Sound asleep. Poor boo-boo was so tired that was all he needed. A space by himself to sooth himself to sleep. This is amazing by the way. JP does not usually do this easily for me. there was one time that he was so upset that he cried himself to sleep while standing up with an arm over the edge of the crib and his mouth open on the edge of the crib. This happened 2 times and was very upsetting.. although I still wish I could have gotten a pic of it, as it was funny to see.. or at least I recognized that it would be after the fact.All that matters is that he is peacefully sleeping at the moment and for the night.