I'm standing outside of Genoa's bedroom door right now while she screams. The past few nights have been torture. I swear this child has some serious future career potential in getting terrorists to talk. She's PERSISTENT, this girl.
Last night after 90 gruelling minutes of off and on screaming wherein I'd sit next to her bed, wait for her to fall asleep, then sneak off to my bed only to have her wake right back up and start screaming again, I gave up and shut her bedroom door, letting her cry. I didn't lock it and we basically did the Super Nanny routine of silently putting her back to bed, a million times over again until she was too exhausted to get up anymore at six AM.
It's been ten minutes of the same business tonight and I've put her back to bed six times already. I should have known earlier when things were going well that it wouldn't last. Basically she finally figured out that I wasn't staying in her room all night after she fell asleep and boy, did that ever piss her off.
(seven)
(eight)
(nine)
(ten)
Damn I should have brought a chair!
Could motherhood be any more exhausting? If you had told me BEFORE I had kids how much sleep I'd be losing this FAR into it, I'd have kindly suggested you lay off the crack pipe.
It's finally quiet in there, so I'm going to go join Dave downstairs. Tomorrow I'll report the final tally!
Bless your heart. Stick with it..it'll be worth it--PROMISE!! Hang in there!!
Posted by: tricia | September 09, 2008 at 01:13 AM
oh my goodness, my heart goes out to you all the way from singapore. we sleep-trained our older daughter when she was 13 months old and it was sooo painful with all.that.screaming. my younger daughter is almost 4 months old and she's looking like she's not going to be a champion sleeper either... not looking forward to the crying when we finally hunker down and sleep-train her! hang in there!
Posted by: Denise | September 09, 2008 at 02:06 AM
Hang in there, you've drawn the line in the sand now, there's no going back. You will get more sleep... sooner or later. Just think when she's a teenager you won't be able to get her out of bed.
Posted by: Sheryl | September 09, 2008 at 02:25 AM
I don't have any assvise for this one :-)
So best of luck with it!
Posted by: Ceece | September 09, 2008 at 07:24 AM
One more with the hang in there! It's worth it in the long run. And tell Dave you deserve a long weekend away from the kids in the very near future! You know, one that includes sleeping in, room service, and a massage.
Posted by: Tracy | September 09, 2008 at 08:49 AM
Sounds like it's time for a call to the Super Nanny
Posted by: Andrea | September 09, 2008 at 09:01 AM
Ok, I know this goes against all crunchy-granola-mama rules, but what about combining the Super Nanny technique with just a teensy-tiny bit of children's Benadryl? Just like a 1/2 teaspoon? Maybe that way, she'd be too tired to come out of the room screaming for you, and once you break the cycle one night, she might realize that falling asleep on her own is not so difficult.
Total assvice, there. I used it one time to get Cate off her "party til midnight" sleep routine, and it worked - one night of a drugged-out 9 p.m. bedtime, and she started going to bed at 9 every night again. But honestly, I have no idea if it'd work for you or not. I just hope you figure out something so that you can get some sleep!
Posted by: cindy w | September 09, 2008 at 10:07 AM
You are doing AMAZING!! Keep it up. Eventually she will realize that her Mamma is not backing down. What if you and Dave do this together...try it just a few nights? Dad's seem to have a way about them!!
No wonder you are having anxiety....
Posted by: Tana | September 09, 2008 at 01:50 PM
Oh, that is really, really rough. Hang in there, she will sleep eventually, right?!
Posted by: O Me, O Mine (Morgan) | September 09, 2008 at 08:29 PM
This is apparently the price you pay for such an easy toilet training experience with Genoa--I guess you really can't have everything! Someday you will share this story with every boyfriend she brings home, or at least the ones you want to scare off--now, doesn't that make you feel better?
Posted by: Janie | September 10, 2008 at 12:14 AM
Oh, God, Josie was the exact same way. I thought I was going to KEEEEL her. To this day, she's a night owl, but once she got to school age and was reading on her own we laid off the bedtime and told her that once it was 9pm, she could do whatever she wanted to do in there as long as she didn't bother us. Generally, she goes to sleep around 10:30 during the week, later on the weekends. It may be that Genoa is heading down the same long road. I think the problem for us really was that she wasn't tired when we wanted her to go to bed, or at least not tired enough, but by 8pm I was Done With Parenting, and she had to go to bed Sometime.
Posted by: Astarte | September 11, 2008 at 05:14 PM