Freakishly strong-willed

I tried to get Makena back to sleeping in her crib last night by letting her cry it out. She was in her crib by 8:30 and the screaming and crying began. And it continued for most of the night. At 12:30 (yes, 4 hours later) I went in to try to calm her down and see if I could get her to lay down. I KNEW she was exhausted by this point.

Unfotunately, my presence in her room caused her to go apes**t crazy, which was why I hadn't gone in earlier. After another half hour, she quieted down a little bit but continued to fuss off and on. I tried to turn off the monitor, but I couldn't sleep and kept turning it back on to see if I could hear her. Every half hour or so, I would hear her cry out and by 3:00 a.m she was still doing this and I went back in to check on her.

She was standing up in her crib with her blanket balled up as a pillow and was leaning into the side of the crib and crib tent which was holding her up. She would doze off and her head or body would start to fall and that would wake her up and she would call out for me.

I knew she would continue this for the rest of the night and I caved and brought her in bed with me. Neither of us had gotten any quality sleep at this point and there was no way I was going to let her not sleep at all. When I picked her up, she curled right into me and was instantly asleep. I am no longer embracing the cry it out method for this child. It has worked with my other two, but I will have to come up with a different strategy for Makena. And it also won't be the "spank-her-hard-method" that was suggested to me by a commentor in my earlier post. I think most parents experience sleep issues with their children and there are some strong opinions out there. Some people may think I let her cry too long and others will say I should have just let her go all night. Parenting is the hardest job!

One thing I do know for sure is that Makena's strong will is what kept her alive and fighting when she was just a 1 pound, 6 ounce 25 week preemie.

War has been officially declared

It was bound to happen. Getting the girls to bed has been way too easy over the last 2.5 years. They still sleep in separate rooms, which feeds into the disorganization of our entire household, but it has worked because everyone gets a good nights sleep.

Until about 2 weeks ago.

Makena has started waking up in the middle of the night and ends up in our bed. It is impossible to let her cry it out because she screams at the top of her lungs and will wake the rest of the house. And she is stubborn and I'm scared to find out how long she will scream for. So she has been waking up at 1:30 or 2:30 or 3:30 and I bring her into our bed, listen to her toss and turn for at least an hour or more and then wait until she is sound asleep so I can put her back in her crib. I'm living with a newborn-toddler.

She has upped the ante. Now, she is refusing to go to bed at all without a knock-down, drag em' out fight. We just spent 2 hours trying to get her in bed. Steve gave in and let her fall asleep on him and then I put her in her crib. She woke up, but was obviously exhausted because she only screamed for 5 minutes.

I better get to sleep because she'll be up in a few hours and I need all the sleep I can get. Getting up to go to work on this schedule gets old....fast.

And if I fall off the blogosphere and you don't hear from me as often, it's because I am deep in the trenches getting my butt kicked by a 2 year-old.

Bedtime woes

My children must have secret pow-wows to determine which child is going to fight going to bed at night. Makena has been in command of this job for the last month or so. We'd go through our bedtime routine...brush teeth, read a book, talk about going to bed, saying night night to daddy and then heading up for bed. I would usually have a clue that we were in for a fight because she emphatically said "No" everytime I mentioned that it was night-night time.

The end result was me putting her in her crib while she starts screaming and thrashing around. I would close the door and turn off the light and listen to her scream like she was straight out of The Exorcist. In an effort to keep the neighbors from calling the police because they think we are hurting one of our children, I would have to go in and get her like she wants and bring her back downstairs to read more books and try to tire her out. Usually within a half hour I could bring her up to bed and put her down without too much of a fight. This struggle has lessened over the last couple of weeks, but I still never know when she's gonna turn on me.

The pow-wow to determine who is going to make my life difficult must have happened sometime when I wasn't looking today. Alyssa took over the job tonight. My child who loves to sleep. My child who smiles at me when I put her in her crib with a handful of binkies. My child who wakes up and doesn't make a peep because she likes to hang out in her crib for awhile.

Tonight, I put her to bed and a few minutes later I hear her crying. She's usually pretty easy to console if she is crying in her crib, but tonight she wanted to come back downstairs and lay on the couch with daddy. We let her hang out for another 10 minutes and then I put her back in bed. She still screamed. I went and got her again and she laid down with me for 10 minutes and then it was back in her crib. I knew I had to let her cry it out. She cried for 30 minutes. I can't stand listening to the girls cry in their cribs. It makes my blood pressure skyrocket.

Maybe she was just mad that we didn't let her sleep all scrunched up on top of her legos and various other toys in her little self-made bed.