Norah's Sleep Habits, Chapter 278

I realize that most everyone could write a book about sleep challenges with their kids, but I our book has a few more chapters than I would like.

We entered a new chapter almost two weeks ago, but have yet to find out how long it will be.

When mom and Norah got back from their trip to Michigan a part of me (the optimistic/unrealistic part) was hoping the time away would give us a fresh start with bedtime.

I was wrong.

We were immediately back to listening to her cry and yell from the other side of her door while we ate supper. I finally reached a point where I couldn't handle it anymore. We kept telling ourselves it was a phase that she would eventually work through, but it had been months and months (I don't want to know exactly how many). I was done. Period. I decided my first step was to call the pediatrician to see if they have any recommendations, or if they could refer us to a sleep specialist.

I talked with the nurse the next day, who promised to send some literature she had recently seen on toddlers resisting sleep. Also that day, mom and I independently spent some time with our trusty friend Google looking for ideas.

Mom found a site on which parents described their sleep issues. One parent described a situation that sounded identical to ours - with their child falling asleep on the floor at the door and all. Their answer was to leave the door open as long as the child stayed in their bed and was quiet. We decided it was worth a try.

That was almost two weeks ago, and the difference has been incredible. No, it hasn't been perfect, but I would say pretty darn close. Only one night I actually had to close the door. I told her that if she followed the rule for two minutes with the door closed I would open it again. A few minutes later I opened the door without saying anything, and we didn't hear a sound the rest of the evening.

The other thing that has changed is she is not getting up before 6AM. Her wake up time isn't super consistent, but with the exception of one morning it hasn't been earlier than 6:15-6:30, and has most often been closer to 7AM.

Who would have ever thought that the answer was to keep the door open? I never would have come up with that on my own. I don't know whether I owe mom more for the time she spent with us after Macy's birth, or finding this nugget of an idea that has completely changed the past 13 evenings in our household.

While I want to celebrate those peaceful evenings (and later starts to the day), I don't want to completely jinx our progress, so I feel compelled to include the following statement:

I AM IN NO WAY ASSUMING THAT THIS WILL CONTINUE.

(But my fingers are definitely crossed.)