Well, Meredith sleeps in her own bed now. Sort of. I say that after two good nights and one disaster. This is how it went down:
We talked about it a lot on Saturday. I told her what our new bedtime routine would be (bath, brush teeth, read books, sing songs, say prayers, lights out – we have been very lax about the bedtime routine in the past) and I tried to be very straightforward about the fact that she sleeps in her own bed now. Not: if you sleep in your own bed you get a reward! Just: this is where you sleep now; you’re a big girl. She whined about it a little, but not much.
Saturday night she got a 103.2 degree fever, but I decided to push through with the plan anyway. I did skip the bath because she was overtired and not feeling well. (By the way, she was fine the next day.) But we did the rest of the routine, and then I turned a white noise app on. I didn’t lie in bed with her but I sat on the floor next to the bed and she was asleep in, oh, five minutes. (There were two wakeups that night; the second time I just brought her to bed with me.)
Sunday she cried a lot more about it during the day. But we stuck to the plan and she was asleep in less than two minutes. (That night she came to bed with me at 1 a.m. because her wakeup coincided with Liam being awake and fussing, so I couldn’t get up to put her back to sleep. Husband and I later communicated about that and he will be putting her back in her bed if that happens again.)
Yesterday she took a late nap and wouldn’t fall asleep; I had to let David take over the vigil and I don’t know what happened except that she came in my bed at midnight and I was too tired to get up with her. So we are regressing day to day, but I’m not giving up!
It’s most important to me that she go to sleep in her own bed. I actually don’t care much if she comes to my bed in the middle of the night or early morning. But I really want to reclaim the evening, and this is the first step. I think once we get this down we will let it settle in for a couple of weeks and then think about Liam.
The heat is relentless. Is it where you are, too? Our air conditioner is broken yet again. Such a bummer. We push forward. We go to the park anyway. We fill up the kiddie pool. We also stay inside a lot. We watch TV and we do crafts and we pet the cats and we visit grandparents and we go to book club and we play silly games.
From Ashley Koch:
Stay strong, Mama! Sebastian is finally falling asleep in his own (after 3 years. Whatever), and it took about two weeks for him to totally adjust, but now it’s no problem. Sticking to the routine is what really helped us. Don’t give up! It will be SO WORTH IT.
From Nora:
Baby steps, right? When I met Knight the oldest one came in his room/our room in the middle of the night on a regular basis. We talked to her about it, figured out what was bothering her (something about the street light coming in her room and bugging her) and so we were able to get it sorted out over time (maybe three months start to finish)? You totally got this and are on the way to reclaiming your evenings!
Heat is insane where we are. The a/c is working but it’s constantly running and I am dreading our next electricity bill…
From Sarah K:
Sounds like you’re making really great progress. Stick to your guns and she’ll get with the program eventually. It has been horribly hot here too, but at least it’s finally cooling down a bit at night. It’s almost cool in the mornings, which is AMAZING for running. Still 95 later in the day though. Is it time for fall yet?