Before my kids came home I swore they would never sleep in my bed.
Then my kids came home.
And now we are co-sleeping with Lily.
Ah, how the mighty have fallen! For the record, I also swore that we wouldn't watch TV, never eat junk food and never visit Disney. So far I'm prevailed on only one of those things (sorry Disney).
If you've been following along the last few months (sleep saga parts one, two, three), you'll know that Lily has gone through a series of sleeping struggles. The low point was right after Christmas. One night we spent about 4 hours sleeping and about 5 hours screaming (everybody- it was a house of crying/screaming/yelling ugliness).
We don't want to go that low again. We want everyone to sleep peacefully. So last week we decided to follow our instincts, Lily's obvious needs, and the wisdom of Mary at Finding Magnolia. We started having Lily sleep in our bed all night. She falls asleep in her own room around 7PM. When we are ready to go to sleep a couple of hours later, we transfer her to our bed. (She usually stays asleep despite being moved.) Since we started co-sleeping this way, she's gone to bed peacefully and stayed asleep all night, waking up at about 6:30AM. No more night terrors, no more bedtime fights. She's even stopped kicking and tossing during the night, which means all three of us are sleeping peacefully. If only our stubborn pride and determination to "make her sleep in her own bed!" kept us from this solution weeks ago.
Parenting is very humbling.
The only down side is I think Daniel might be a little jealous. So on weekends we encourage him to pile in with us in the mornings... a little extra cuddle time before the day begins.
I have a few resolutions about teen parenting that I hold dear... and I can see now that they might also need to be thrown out the window. We'll see how we hold the line at "no make up til 16" and "no cell phone til you have a job."
Ha!
Then my kids came home.
And now we are co-sleeping with Lily.
Ah, how the mighty have fallen! For the record, I also swore that we wouldn't watch TV, never eat junk food and never visit Disney. So far I'm prevailed on only one of those things (sorry Disney).
If you've been following along the last few months (sleep saga parts one, two, three), you'll know that Lily has gone through a series of sleeping struggles. The low point was right after Christmas. One night we spent about 4 hours sleeping and about 5 hours screaming (everybody- it was a house of crying/screaming/yelling ugliness).
We don't want to go that low again. We want everyone to sleep peacefully. So last week we decided to follow our instincts, Lily's obvious needs, and the wisdom of Mary at Finding Magnolia. We started having Lily sleep in our bed all night. She falls asleep in her own room around 7PM. When we are ready to go to sleep a couple of hours later, we transfer her to our bed. (She usually stays asleep despite being moved.) Since we started co-sleeping this way, she's gone to bed peacefully and stayed asleep all night, waking up at about 6:30AM. No more night terrors, no more bedtime fights. She's even stopped kicking and tossing during the night, which means all three of us are sleeping peacefully. If only our stubborn pride and determination to "make her sleep in her own bed!" kept us from this solution weeks ago.
Parenting is very humbling.
The only down side is I think Daniel might be a little jealous. So on weekends we encourage him to pile in with us in the mornings... a little extra cuddle time before the day begins.
I have a few resolutions about teen parenting that I hold dear... and I can see now that they might also need to be thrown out the window. We'll see how we hold the line at "no make up til 16" and "no cell phone til you have a job."
Ha!
So happy for you!!!!
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