The more they sleep, the more they sleep…

(this picture has nothing to do with this post, I just thought it had to be shared!)

So, a while back I wrote about how Marielle was up a lot at night. Well, since then (Novemeber 29 I wrote that post) Marielle has been up at night at least twice, every single night. If not more. I have been devastated about it. She also wasn’t napping well (about 45 minutes a day) and I was REALLY devastated about that. Friends said she’s done napping, she doesn’t need it, etc. and I just couldn’t believe it. She’s 2 1/2, and I thought naps would be around for another year or more. And when she is done with naps, my plan was for her to have some quiet time during the day in her room by herself or something. But at 2 1/2, she’s not quite ready to entertain herself. I can’t just send her to her room and tell her to be quiet and read a book. She’s too little for that. I really like my naptime/downtime during the day. I get SO MUCH done at that time.

Last week I had to bring Aliza to the doctor for her 15 month check up and Marielle happened to be sick too. I squeezed them both into the same appointment and I was really excited to ask our doctor about Marielle’s sleep trouble too. The night before the appointment, I woke up and I was so mad at Jon. I knew I had gotten up 4 times (yes FOUR times) with Marielle and he just laid there and let me go every time!! He is very good about going in there at night and doing everything he can so that I get to sleep too. I was so mad at him. When I talked to him later that morning, I found out that he also went in her room twice!! I thought I was going to lose it – I was no longer mad at him, but that meant that she was up 6 times in one night!! I had had it. I knew this wasn’t right, what were we doing wrong, what could we do, yada yada yada. I could not wait for our appointment.

Dr. Franz basically said to do some tough love. Tell her that we are not coming back in her room and be very stern about it and if she wakes up, yell from our room to go back to sleep. I was skeptical about that, but we started trying it that night. By Thursday, she was sleeping through the night again!!! It has been great!

When you have a baby, you hear advice from everyone of course, but one of the things I had heard was “sleep begets more sleep”, or “the more they sleep, the more they sleep”. I kept thinking about that piece of advice and wondering about our nighttime and nap sleep troubles. Is it still true at 2 1/2? Could that be what was wrong with Marielle’s naps? I think so!! We are back to 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours a day!! And mama couldn’t be happier!! (and rested!!)