Sleep Woes

Don’t be fooled by her cuteness, she transforms into a raging crazy person at bed time. For those of you that may be pregnant and have happened upon this site, fear not, babies typically sleep through the night as early as eight weeks to three or four months old. My older daughter, Ana, was sleeping through the night at seven weeks old.

Emily, however, is a different story.

Not that she’s not capable of sleeping through the night , because she is. She can go a good 2-3 days with a perfect 11 hour night. There was even a period of time when she happily said, “night night!” when we told her it was bed time and brought her upstairs.

Those days are gone…again.

Here are the girls playing on pretend beds (Ana pulled the cushions off the couch and the two of them pretended to sleep for a good thirty minutes. )

I wish Emily was this happy in her actual bed. Not so! Each night she screams “no!” several dozen times and will arch her back and protest bed time as if it were the worst fate in the world. Jim had been taking Emily to bed while I hid upstairs for the past couple of months and she was fine with that (when I took her, she’d refuse bed time and cry). Now she’s not cooperating for him at night AND refusing her naps.

Give me strength.

Ah well. Emily has always been a fragile sleeper. I wonder if it’s time to switch her to a regular bed and try to get her to really enjoy bed time instead of dropping her in her crib and hoping she doesn’t wake up during the night (she still wakes up 2-3 times a week). For now, I’ve been sitting in her room until she calms down and lays down, talking to her, letting her know I’m there and waiting until she’s drowsy then leaving. She still cries but it’s usually only for 5-10 minutes. Ug. My poor heart!!