Oh, For A Thousand Nights To Sleep...

As any mom would say, I think my children are the greatest! They are both full of cuddles and spunk, perfect in every way...except for a small area called sleep, that is. As a baby, Mason was a terrible sleeper. It took a battery-powered swing (and a pack of batteries a week) to get him to nap at all. And forget about sleeping through the night! I turned to friends, pediatricians, and even literature for help. After reading, and failing at several infant-sleep books, I concluded that they were written for cookie-cutter babies...a mold in which my child didn't fit. For the remainder of Mason's first year, I opted for the 'grin and bear it' method of getting up to comfort him throughout the night. Until finally one night, two weeks before his first birthday, he slept through the night! It was nothing I did...he was just finally ready to do it! And he has been a fantastic sleeper ever since! ....Fast forward four years later: When I became pregnant with Ellie, friends and family assured me that this one would be a great sleeper. Because after all, no second child is the same as the first, right? This theory couldn't be more wrong, by the way. Ellie is much like her brother in so many ways, which I absolutely love, because everything I adore about Mason is multiplied in her--their personality, their willfulness, their spunkiness (they even rolled, crawled, and walked at the same time). But unfortunately she also mimics his distaste for sleeping through the night during infancy. At 10 months, I'm still getting up with Ellie about every 3 hours per night. But the one thing I wasn't going to do this time was read any of those sleep-help books...no sir, not me, not this time. But a few weeks ago, in a moment of crazed sleep deprivation, I caved. I read this particular book in less than two days! (What can I say...I was hopeful and ready to get started on my road to slumbering bliss!) I followed the techniques just as they were written, but once again, sleep did not improve. I even went as far as to email the author with my situation in hopes of some personal advice. I have yet to hear back from her. And I am not hopeful that I will. :) So again, I'm back to grinning and bearing it. But in reality, I know that it's all in the way I look at it. While these midnight meetings have been some of the most exhausting moments, they have also been some of the most precious moments of my baby girl's first year. Because as crazy as it might sound, just as it was when Mason was a baby, there is something that I cherish about holding my sweet baby close to me during the night--something really special about being together when the whole house is quiet and dark, and everyone else is asleep, and it's just the two of us--and finding joy in the fact that I get to be the one from whom she desires comfort. As I remind myself in my tiredness, these moments are fleeting. I'm confident that she too will become a great sleeper, in her own time. And in the meantime, I will enjoy every second of nighttime togetherness with her...as I simultaneously look forward to sleeping through the night again!!

(I always like to add pictures relating to my posts. However, since I couldn't find any of her sleeping, these are just random shots of her not sleeping.) :)