Sleep

Sleep has been interesting the past week or two.  I thought it would be a good idea to try to night wean Eileen.  She's big, she started solids, she is 6 months old, and doesn't need to eat in the middle of the night.  We moved her to our closet so that we would stop disturbing her so much. First night it went great.  Second night was fine.  Third night she pooped in the middle of the night.  After that, Eileen decided the middle of the night was a good time for pooping and thus needed to be nursed back to sleep since a full diaper change with the lights on was rather stimulating.

I really wanted Eileen night weaned so that I could move her downstairs into her crib in the room she shares with Linus.  Eileen is already past the weight limit for the co-sleeper. I don't really want to move the pack n' play from the basement where she takes a nap.  After a week of attempted night weaning, I decided that maybe just getting her to share a room with her brother was more important.  We are staying in a one room cabin at camp in less than two weeks, as well as a hotel room when we go to Hawaii.  They need to learn to sleep in the same room if we want our vacations to be relaxing. So, Monday night we decided to let them try sharing a room.

People have assured me that kids will learn to adjust.  Eileen went to bed no problem in the crib.  We did Linus' bedtime routine in the living room.  Shadow puppet time, of course, had to be abandoned.  Dave took Linus into the room and whisper sang him one more song and that was that.  About an hour later we heard Linus talking to Eileen from across the room.  "Go to sleep Eileen.  I love this song.  Daddy sings it to me." Linus then sang Eileen "Spider Lullaby" followed by attempts at "Rockabye Baby."  Eileen learned to ignore him and went to sleep.  Linus eventually fell asleep.  Dave had to go in once in the middle of the night to resettle them both for about 2 minutes when Eileen woke up crying.  Aside from a 4 am nursing, that was that. We were feeling cautiously optimistic.

The optimism is quickly fading.  Since Monday night, Linus has been less than enthusiastic about sleepovers with Eileen.  He has informed us that Eileen wants to sleep in the pack n play.  There is lots more crying in the night.  Linus is not handling the wake ups in the middle of the night well.  He has become a troll during the day, a very unpleasant, loud, and aggressive troll. Eileen for her part, is having trouble taking naps.

I have given up on night weaning for the moment.  Now that they are sharing a room, I may just pray that she gives it up on her own.  I just keep repeating to myself, "They will learn to adjust, they will learn to adjust."

I swear these two still love each despite their forced sleeping situation.