What Happened?

We were in such a good rhythm. We made minor changes to the night time routine and Norah responded so well. We were reading books, and she was going down with little to no crying.

I'm not sure what happened.

Time change? Ear infection? Teeth?

For whatever reason we've hit a rough patch. Norah is fine, fine, fine, all evening, and then we get serious about bedtime and she looses it. Earlier in the week we thought maybe she was just overtired by the time we were putting her down because she wouldn't settle down for reading or cuddling like she had been so consistently before. We would finally just put her in bed and she would cry for 20-30 minutes before falling asleep. We talked about it, and decided it was probably just a phase (for whatever reason), and that we needed to stick with the routine and wait it out.

Seth put her to bed tonight and came upstairs pretty pumped about his parenting skills. She didn't want anything to do with sitting on his lap to read books, so he just started reading with her standing in the middle of the room crying. It seems as though she decided that wasn't much fun, and she eventually wanted to crawl into his lap to read "Goodnight Moon." They followed the rest of the night time routine from there and she was perfect. She literally went down without a peep and I haven't heard one thing on the monitor.

I had a proud moment earlier today, too. (We celebrate even the smallest victories.) Norah wanted a snack, which I prepared, but she did not want to get in her chair. I explained to her that she needed to sit in her chair if she wanted a snack (we really don't let her eat around the house), She did not want to get in, although she definitely wanted the snack. One thing led to another and she was crying...hard...and laying in the middle of the living room. I ignored her, doing laundry and putting things away in the kitchen. Occasionally she would point to her tray (where her snack was) and cry. I just kept telling her she could have her snack if she sat in her chair.

This went on for about 15 minutes.

I contemplated suggesting we go outside, which I knew was pretty much guaranteed to divert her attention, but since I was pretty sure she understood what I was telling her I decided to see how things turned out.

Eventually she asked to get in her chair to eat her snack, and I considered it a small victory for mommy.