Sunday, July 30, 2006

Bedtime Success

I hope to not be speaking too soon, but we've had a bedtime success in our house over the weekend. Ally did not sleep for one second in my bed last night (although at 6:30 I went in there hoping that she would sleep with me...)

Our original plan was to put her crib downstairs in the guest room. I would sleep on the futon and "let her cry it out" until she slept by herself through the night. Danny had a wonderful brainstorm. His idea: put the mattress from Ally's crib in Emma's room and see what happens with that, first. We decided to give that a try. If it worked, it would be much less painful for me. If it didn't, nothing was lost.

I proved to be a stroke of genius! As soon as the mattress was set up Saturday morning, Ally was all over "her bed." She jumped on it, guarded over it and would go in the bedroom by herself and lay down on it. Several times she told one of us to "om on" to play with her on her bed. Her nap Saturday and Sunday was close to two hours - at least 45 minutes longer than in her crib. Last night she cried at 12am. I went in there and laid down next to her on the floor and she was out again - faster than if I had brought her into our bed. She woke up at 5:30 and was relatively quite. Because she went to bed much earlier than normal the night before (Emma was a terror and we put them down together), my attempts to lay down with her in the girls' room were futile. All said, she slept on her own the entire night! Ah! The power of wanting what your sister has.

Have a good night tonight. We are certainly planning to do so ourselves.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jennifer,

That's terrific!