We have won our very last battle with Adria and bedtime. Yes, the score is outrageously uneven but we have fought the good fight and come out victorious!
The winning battles:
Battle 1: Baby Adria moving from our room to her nursery and the crib.
Battle 2: No longer walking up and down the hall holding her to get her to sleep. This took us well into the year after she had turned one.
Battle 3: Getting Adria to sleep through the night, it only took 2 1/2 years.
Battle 4: Moving from crib to big girl bed! Thanfully this was an easy win, but required us to still rock her to sleep and then lay her down in her drowsy state of being.
So after these first four wins we were happy but still discouraged at the overall bed time issues we were having. After Adria had gotten so big and we were still having to walk her up and down our hallway, Josh took over bedtime because my back muscles couldn't take that much weight anymore. Eventually we moved to just rocking her to sleep. This has been the norm for quite awhile now in our house. Every night Josh rocks her to sleep and every night he rocks himself to sleep. Most nights I was having to go gently wake him up so he could lay her down. We went around and around about how to tackle the bedtime battle. Our doctor even weighed in and we tried some different stuff. Adria is STUBBORN!!!!! And with two working parents she won, thus the very high win score for her! Maybe we were being permissive parents by allowing this to continue but I also say if you have ever had a bad sleeper you will do most anything to just survive the sleep fight. Try being exhausted for two years of your life, NOT fun. Consequently, we gave in to how she would sleep.
Over time Josh has grown VERY frustrated with the situation. While I felt for him I kind of enjoyed bed time because I typically had an hour to myself. But since that is very selfish and my poor hubby was suffering and because I was tired of allowing life to go on like this I devised a plan for Battle 5-getting her to learn to go to sleep by herself in her bed! mwhahhahahaha!
Phase one: THE TIMER! Did I mention that we had massive meltdowns every night when we said it was bedtime?!? Oh, I didn't? Well let me tell you folks the massive bedtime meltdowns were enough to make us flee for the mountains. In comes the timer and waaalaaa no more meltdowns. The timer is set and when it beeps it means it is bedtime.
Phase two: Set another time for the rocking portion of bedtime. She was allowed a certain amount of rocking time and then she had to get in bed and Josh would sit in the room until she was about asleep and then leave. Thus teaching her to fall asleep on her own, which she does at nap time everyday!
Phase three: Decrease rocking time over a period of nights. This went well too!
Phase four: Begin to decrease staying in the room until she falls asleep time. This is where the great error happened. Josh couldn't stay awake at this point and fell asleep in the chair.
Therefore we had an issue! We have been at this sleepy state of being for awhile now. After a late night talk with the hubby we decided to do a cold turkey approach and see how bad it is. For those who don't know Adria well, let me explain how she doesn't do well with change and transitions. We do a lot of preteaching and coaching prior to things happening. It makes life much more enjoyable if we do this. The cold turkey approach isn't something we typically condone.
Friday night we said let's do it. When we set the timer we explained to her what would happen tonight and I don't think she really thought us serious. But we did it. She screamed and cried for only a half hour! This was amazing! In the past at bedtime we have went hours of crying. We went in every five minutes and reassured her that we loved her and she was safe. After two prayers and lots of kisses and hugs good night and a half hour of crying she went to sleep. She woke up once in the night.
Saturday night we did it again. We managed only five minutes of crying time! It was improvement. Josh and I celebrated with icecream and watching half of Father of the Bride. It was like we were married or something and had a chance to enjoy each other's company again! She was up twice in the night and ended up sleeping in our bed (I was exhausted because our other darling daughter thinks she is STARVING every two hours. You fight the fights that are worth winning)!
Sunday night we did it again. She didn't cry at all. I'm getting ready for bed after I'm done typing this post. I'm praying that as the crying time decreases that the waking up in the night doesn't continue to increase. We'll see! But for now Josh and I are excited at the prospect of having a little bit of evening time together. We miss having husband/wife hang out time. Most times our hangout time is listening to each other snore!! :) For now I am saying we have finally won Battle 5!!!!
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