Sleep, the Sequel

How's the sleep? It's better; thanks for asking. I've been sitting in a chair in Sarah's room while she goes to sleep at night. I tried reading, but she just goofed around, so now I sit and watch her, and she stays on task better. She's asleep in about 20 minutes. She still cries in the middle of the night. I wait about five minutes to see if she'll stop (which she does sometimes), then go in and sleep on the bed beside her crib for the rest of the night (or until I wake up and she's asleep). The combination of these things seems to have comforted her some, and she doesn't scream hysterically the way she was.

At nap time, Don still rocks her. Sometimes she goes to sleep that way, and other times she refuses. He has left her in her crib a couple of times and she cries for a few minutes then plays, whimpering every now and then. Yesterday, it took an hour, but she finally went to sleep on her own.

Friday night, I had an epiphany. I had just spent 40 minutes sitting in her room while she went to sleep, feeling annoyed most of the time. As I walked downstairs, I thought back to Al-Anon meetings I attended years ago, and it occurred to me that, although I couldn't control HER behavior, I could adjust MY attitude. I could "let go and let God."

We've spent seven months trying to get Sarah to go to sleep the way we want her to; trying to train her. It hasn't worked. We've learned that she WILL go to sleep while I sit in her room, and she will go back to sleep in the middle of the night, if I sleep on the bed beside her crib. I've been frustrated because I've been told I should be able to leave her room at bedtime while she falls asleep and expect her to put herself back to sleep during the night. But that just doesn't work, so why not accept it?

She obviously needs to be nurtured right now. She won't need it forever. At some point, she will be comfortable going to sleep on her own. It could be next week or next year (or, dare I say it, the next one). Is it so bad that I have to sit in her room for half an hour, or sleep in there for half the night? Not really, unless I make it so. I've chosen not to make it so and to take One Day at a Time. As long as we're all getting a good night's sleep, does it really matter how?

And guess what.... Friday night, she slept for 11 hours without a peep! That's only about the third time she's slept through the night since we got home. Coincidence? You decide.... She has been noticeably happier the last couple of days, and that means everything to us. Years from today, I bet I'll look back fondly at the time I spent watching her go to sleep, so why not look at it that way now?