Wednesday, July 27, 2011

What's Missing from This Picture?

Last night we moved the glider out of the girls' room...just one more step in trying to help Mallory end her night~waking habit.

The great news is that since dropping scheduled naps a couple weeks ago, falling asleep has become much better for Mallory. The girls are in bed at 7:30 and Mallory is asleep just a few minutes later. It takes Anna Claire a little longer to fall asleep but that's always been OK because she doesn't cry for us to stay until she falls asleep and she stays put in her bed.

We'd hoped by now Mallory's waking up in the middle of the night would have gotten even a little better, but it hasn't, so we went to have a chat with Dr. Tillman Monday because, truthfully, I am exhausted and at my wits end getting up at all hours of the night and struggling to get her to stay in her bed without waking up her sister. It was good to know Dr. Tillman thinks we're doing everything right but that Mallory is just extremely strong~willed {tell me something I didn't know} and it's just going to take longer to break this habit and reset her "clock."

We came up with a few new ideas and made some adjustments to old ideas and the first is taking the chair out the room because when Mallory wakes up at night she wants to be rocked. The thinking is that when she realizes she isn't going to get what she wants {rocking}, she'll stop coming to get me.

So, last night she only woke up once with no fussing about not being rocked, though I ended up sitting on the floor for about ten minutes before I was able to negotiate with her to allow me to get back into my bed {I know, negotiating with a three year old in the middle of the night. It's insane}. She did fall asleep by herself and stayed in bed the rest of the night. 

A small victory? I'll take it.

1 comment:

Brandon said...

How's Mallory doing now? You probably aren't looking for advice, but we do have a few sleep books if you want to borrow them.