victory over the night

I'm elated to report that for the last four nights, Josephine Lucille (17mo) slept ten hours.  That's right, ten hours.  That means also that I have slept a normal amount for a grownup with a one and a half year old.

Anyone else who has had a "terrible sleeper" knows the feeling when all your hard work sleep training your little one pays off and finally one morning you wake up and realize that it's light outside and you haven't heard a peep from your baby yet.   I didn't want to jinx it the first night, so I didn't tell anyone, but I feel like after four nights it's safe to report that I think we are over the hump.

I haven't blogged much about our sleep struggles.  I haven't blogged much lately at all, for that matter.  I've thought about it lots of times.  But I've been just so tired.  And it made me want to cry, the though of typing out that I hadn't slept more than four hours at a time in almost two years.

As recently as one week ago, Josie was still waking up every three hours, mad at the world, demanding to be picked up, to nurse, to be sung to.   We were completely and in every way exhausted.   Aside from managing our dogs (another story), the middle-of-the-night situation has probably been the biggest consistent source of tension in our marriage for the last six months.   It's your turn / no she only wants you / I don't want to breastfeed / well there's nothing I can do, why don't we just ignore her / we have to stick with the plan / yada yada yada yada.  None of that is fun in the middle of the night when you're half asleep and miserable.   It doesn't help that our other kid poops herself in the middle of the night five days a week (another 'nother story) 

I'm not going to elaborate on what our sleep training "plan" looked like, because it was a loose and sloppy plan, and every child is different, and I'm not a certified pediatric sleep specialist, and I hate all those parenting/sleep books, and truthfully, I don't think it would be helpful to anyone if I shared specifically what we did to finally get here.  Other people telling me what they did with their kids was not helpful to me when I was desperate and sleep deprived and feeling hopeless.  It made me want to punch something.   There are some great resources from real specialists that are worth checking out, I am not one of them.  (One in particular that helped me was Tracy from Get Quiet Nights.)

But what I will say is this: every child will sleep through the night some day.  This [very very difficult] phase of our life was no different than any other phase.  It came, and it went.

And now if you need me at 3am, you can find me cozy in my bed having a party in my dreams.