There's Going to be Some Crying

Chloe has a sad confession to make to you all today. That is, she is not doing so well with sleeping through the night . . . again. Long-time readers of my blog will remember that way back when, we dealt with this issue more than once. Let's see, I think there were at least four different times in her short life where we went through the whole "let her cry it out" 3-day process of training and retraining her to fall asleep by herself after waking at night. And now we're back in that place again.

It seems that through all of the transitions our family has been through, Chloe has lost that ability to soothe herself and sleep through the night. I know this is somewhat my fault, for responding to her when she cries at night (rather than just putting up with the crying and forcing her to go to sleep alone), but some of it has also been the circumstances. We have spent many nights in hotel rooms (more than a month total) since leaving our home in Asia, and with all four of us in the same room it seems much easier to just get up, nurse her a little, and put her back down to sleep. Living in Richmond for those 10 days meant sharing a quad with several other families, some of whom were trying to get some rest just on the other side of the paper-thin wall from crying Chloe. So again, I gave in to her cries and got up to feed her. Now that we've been in Louisville, we're in an apartment complex where the sound also travels alarmingly well, and while the semester was going (and hard working students trying to get some sleep just upstairs and next door) I was somewhat embarassed again to let her cry.

Admittedly, I have taken the "easy" way out by letting her get me up to feed her. I was unwilling to let her fuss, and a few minutes of nursing usually did the trick, so I didn't mind too much.

But no more.

I have resolved that we need to dive into this process once again. I cannot keep getting up at night. On a good night, she sleeps most of the way through, or all the way through, but those good nights are becoming few and far between. Last night was not a good night. She was up at 10:30, then 3:15 and stayed awake(!) until after 5am, talking and playing. I tried to feed her at about 4 and that only made it worse. I think she finally got fussy and then fell asleep about 5:30. This morning she was as happy as ever, oblivious of the fact that Mama was tired out from being up two hours in the middle of the night!

So, I'm going to start playing hardball. I am going to rigorously adhere to her bedtime, and once she's in bed and all of her needs met, I'm not going in. It may take a few nights, but I know (at least I desperately hope) that we can get to a place of her sleeping through the night again. I confess that I have some selfish motivation to make this happen, but I am anticipating that the first part of this week will be pretty bad and then maybe, just maybe, we will not have issues with it again . . . until we have to move again, that is!

I feel like I should apologize in advance to my neighbors, but there's just going to be some crying; I can't help it. Let's all pray that it will be short-lived! A better sleeping schedule will be better for Chloe and for Mommy!