Epic Sleep Battle

Let me start by saying that helping a child who was adopted as a toddler learn to sleep through the night is much more complicated - like TONS more complicated - than helping a newborn child learn to sleep through the night. I used tried and true techniques to train Sam to sleep through the night when he was a baby (with minimal tears) and never had sleep problems with him. Until he turned into a teenager, but that is a story for another day.....

When you adopt a toddler, they are absolutely traumatized and need to have every ounce of security in the world heaped on them by their new parents as they adjust. Co-sleeping is strongly encouraged, followed by a gentle transition to sleeping in their own cribs/beds. Check. Okay, now you have a 2-year-old who has grown to depend on you at night and whose attachment to you is still forming. So when, exactly, do you cut that little person off and let them cry their eyes out at night?? With Edie, the answer was never. She has always been a nervous sleeper and she was close to 4 years old before we got her to sleep through the night without us. Without tears. She liked the door open and lights on in the hallway (still does). But she slept ... until one year later when Gemma arrived on the scene. For a variety of reasons that aren't appropriate to share on this blog, Gemma's sleep patterns were even more troubled when she came to live with us. It took her longer to settle and feel secure. Getting her to sleep now is not the problem - that's easy. The problem arises during the night. At age 4 she still expects us to come when she calls us at night - and we come because if we don't Gemma screams at the top of her lungs and wakes Edie up and Edie starts to panic about losing sleep. Then we have two children who can't sleep, plus two adults who can't sleep. So one of us has slept with Gemma for part of the night for the past three and a half years, with probably a 5 or 6 nights in TOTAL she has slept through the night without us.

It is HELL, I tell you.

We have been working on small changes over the past 6 months, to encourage Gemma to get back to sleep on her own. We have had some success, but not enough. Last week, we decided that the time has come for, drum roll please...... the Epic Sleep Battle.

Phase I: For several days, Chris tried to bribe Gemma back to sleep at night with the promise of a small candy the next morning. This worked, sort of, but is not really sustainable. For her teeth, if nothing else.

Phase II: Supernanny. Gemma woke up at 10pm last night and asked for me. I told her to go to sleep. She cried. She got out of bed. For the next 45 minutes, I carried her back to bed with no words and no eye contact approximately 60 times. She tried everything, every tactic she could think of throwing my way. Then, for the next hour and 15 minutes, she would alternately cry, talk, yell, get out of bed. But each time with a longer cycle. After almost 2.5 hours, at 12:20am she gave up.

Who knows what tonight will bring, but I feel emboldened. Bring it on, Gemma, bring IT ON!

Meanwhile, I think someone is a little tired. :)