Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Sleep update


Apparently I've taken a major blogging break over the month of December.  I actually was pretty shocked to see that I hadn't blogged since the 1st!  Where did the time go?  December has certainly flown by but it has been such a fun month filled with Christmas shopping, Christmas light looking, lots of warm drinks, a brief but beautiful snow, and preparations to go see our families.

I was so thankful for everyone's comments regarding the sleep dilemma at our house so I thought I would give you a quick update.  So after I wrote my last post about sleep here, we tried the recommendations from the book (as little social interaction as possible when bringing the kids back to bed), and when she slept through the night two or three days in a row, we thought it was successful...until she started waking up again.  More and more frequently.  We quickly realized that this technique was NOT working on our sweet little girl, and sleepless nights certainly make you feel frantic/desperate to find a solution.  We hit our low when she got up 13 times one night, so we decided to figure out a way to lock her in the room.

This was a really hard concept for me.  I had several friends who successfully used this technique, but the book said it should be used as a last resort, last case scenario.  Once I read what the "experts" recommend, I have major mom guilt to think about doing otherwise.  It makes me second-guess everything.  To make matters worse, we live in a really old house with old door knobs that are too big for the normal child proof methods.  To make a long story short, we found some contraption off amazon (have I mentioned I love amazon) that after nailing two paint stirrers to the door frame (don't ask), works great!  The first night she was sad for about 5-10 minutes, but then she went back to bed...and slept through the night.  Then she slept through the night again, and we thought, why didn't we try this sooner?  Then she started waking up...again.  However, now she wakes up maybe once (sometimes not at all), usually around 3, and starts knocking at her door, saying "mom, mom, mom."  Usually by the time I make it to her bedroom, she's turned on her lamp, she has no clothes on, and she's picked out a whole new outfit she wants to wear.  We always have a conversation about how she wants to be awake now and I try to look as tired as possible (which isn't difficult) while assuring her we are all asleep.  It would be really funny if it wasn't the middle of the night.  However, waking up once a night?  I'll take it.  I'm thankful for the sleep we're getting and feel much more refreshed these days (although I still depend on coffee for extra energy during the day).  

When we're visiting family I'm sure all the "sleep training" will be reversed and we'll be back at square one.  Sigh.  Never.ending.battle.

1 comment:

  1. Sleep battles really don't ever end! We just have lucky times and worse times. But I love her style!!! Nothing wrong with wardrobe changes in the middle of the night...

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