The last two days proved to be productive, but I needed to make another big step forward. The score was tied but I needed to pull ahead in a big way. Today would really decide the series winner. If I could maintain the same progress from the past two days, or even better, I would be on my way to sweet victory. A fifth day might not even be needed. But if she turned the tables and pulled some new tricks, it could be disastrous to my strategy.
Naptime ended up going so well it kind of freaked me out. She was asleep within ten minutes. No mind games, no fussing, and no trouble. And the best part was she fell asleep alone in her room with no crying. I was the baby whisperer. “Hush child, sleep. Sleep I tell you sleep,” I commanded her quietly with my mind.
Bed time still took a little while but the major progress was she fell asleep without me in the room. Just as she did at naptime on day one when she asked me to “go.” Maybe she was bluffing because I wouldn’t read her another book, but I left and she fell asleep. And here’s the kicker. The midnight monster did not make an appearance and she slept through the entire night. I now had a commanding lead in our sleep time challenge. I could clean this up in one more day.
I find it funny that while I spend 100% of my focused energy on Ellie’s sleep schedule, she’s completely obsessed with sleep too. Not for herself, but her “friends.” She’s constantly putting all her friends to bed. Her friends being Elmo, the bear, the pink bunny, and sometimes Mark the Donkey.
She’ll lie them all down in a row on the floor and say, “sheep, nai nai (sleep, night night).” Then she’ll grab all of the kitchen towels from the cabinet and very meticulously cover them up. She tucks them in under layer after layer of kitchen towels. She kisses each of them and says again, “nai nai.” Next she searches the room looking for other things that she can put to bed, but when she finds nothing else, it ends up being me or Aya. She drags one of us to the floor with dilated eyes and a kitchen towel in her hand saying, “Nai Nai?”
She also makes me draw sleeping characters. Anytime the crayons come out, I can count on drawing Muno, the one-eyed monster from Yo Gabba Gabba, at least 10 times in all different colors. But now she points to his eye and says “sheep.” So I draw Muno with his eye closed and a blanket over him. But that wasn’t good enough. She grabbed one of her kitchen towels, put it over the paper and kissed the picture of him goodnight. And then she made me kiss it too. She didn’t ask. I literally mean she made me. She put her hand on the back of my head and pushed it down towards the paper and said, “Nai nai!”
Why can’t she find naptime and bedtime for herself just as fun as she does for her friends? Hopefully her passion for pretend sleep time will carry over and help her sleep better too. Â And with today’s win, I think she’s well on her way. The bases were loaded, now all I had to do was hit a home run the next day to win the game.
We are going through something kind of similar. We’re trying to limit how much comforting Abdullah gets when he wakes in the middle of the night. We’re swapping out mama for a bottle of water. So far, so good. Night 1 he woke up and drank water. Night 2 he didn’t wake up until 7am! Tonight is night 3, we’ll see how it goes. Here’s hoping for a good night’s rest for both Ellie and Abdullah!
Sounds like you are making progress with Abdullah, that’s great!
She loves to put Ralph the muppet, a frog and her talking babies to bed here, too. But she will bring the babies in her bed for her nap time. It’s so cute watching her tuck them in and give them a kiss and a hug. <3