Sleeping or Not! (and a few cool links)

We are a co-sleeping family. Mostly because it is the only way K will actually sleep, and therefore, the only way I’m getting any sleep. I don’t mind it. It helped the attachment way back, (and probably still does), and I was nervous about her various health concerns and well, the list goes on and on. I’m ready to put her in her own bed, but as they say, maybe tomorrow…….

Oh I’ve gotten plenty of advice:

Let her cry it out

Put a screen over her crib so she can’t climb out of it

Carry her back to her own bed two thousand times in the night until she stays

Don’t use eye contact or engage after eight o’clock

Put her to bed earlier
(this actually works – the book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth, has a lot of great information)

Whatever theory you have on toddlers sleeping you can find a book about it and ten more people with a different theory. I’ve even written my own sleeping Top 10 list!

Mostly I don’t mind it. We have a big bed and can move around changing positions several times in the night without trouble. And I love looking over in the morning and watching her, but I’ll give it up soon and she’ll be an independent sleeper soon.

But last night, Hubby went to bed early. (Very early in fact, since he’d been on a particularly rough bicycle ride up in the mountains, and well, he is over fifty now), so the whole family went to bed early.

Only K wasn’t having any of it. She’d get up, sing loudly, jump up and down, cry and basically make a lot of noise.

I was doing consequences with her, and then I was yelling, and then I gave up and closed the baby gate and left her behind it to cry. Of course Hubby wasn’t getting any sleep then either. The whole house was awake including the two dogs and cat and maybe even the neighbors.

Now it is early morning and she is sleeping soundly, the perfect picture of innocence.

And I have to wake her up! We are headed off on a family adventure to watch the famous Rachael from Signing Time perform up in Denver.

(I’ll blog about it when I get back. Rachael is really fabulous and I love what she has done because of her own experience with her special needs children).

Well, at least K will sleep on the long ride home.

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