Abracadabra!

I feel as if I have just discovered the secret to a show-stopping magic trick. I just laid Hayden in her crib, and she instantly curled up with her bear and rolled over, resting quietly for several minutes as she got ready to go to sleep. No sobs, no tears, no screaming and flailing for Mommie. Just some final adjustments and wiggles as she settled herself down to sleep. It's amazing. After a year of helping me to intimately understand just how little sleep one really does NEED to survive on, Hayden feels that I have sufficiently learned that lesson and is ready to move on to another.

It's not that Hayden wasn't a great sleeper, or fought bedtime every night. It's just been this hodge podge of issues - allergies, anxieties (hers and mine), illnesses (hers and mine), schedule changes and challenges, trips and troubles, you name it. It's kept us from getting a full night's sleep in over a year. The nights she has slept, I haven't. The nights I've desperately, oh so desperately! wanted to sleep, she hasn't. This continual tug of war that I was sure was going to leave me face first in the mud before all was said and done has suddenly slacked, and I see my opponent has succumbed to the sweet slumber I myself so long for.

Inexplicably, she has begun going to bed on her own much easier. I began a few weeks ago, prepping her about an hour before bedtime that it was coming. I'd tell her what all we were going to do - diaper, pjs, stories, tooth brushing, nursing, and video, or some combination of those, and then we were going to sleep. Once we were done, I'd lay her down in her crib, and lay in my bed nearby. She would stand up and scream and reach for me. I would quietly comfort her and tell her it was bed time, and in all but her most extreme cases, she would soon flop back down, curl up with Bunny Bear, and began tossing and turning as she wore herself down.

Last night, my first night back in town, she cried for less than a minute and then spent 20 minutes going to sleep afterwards. Tonight, when I laid her down, even though both her daddy and I were still in the room and talking, and he kept coming in and out for several minutes after (thanks, Chris), she laid right down and began nodding off. No ifs, ands, or buts. I'm still in shock. AND! And, she sleeps almost nearly through the night, if not all the way through! That's as much, if not more, of a miracle than the going to sleep. Her big issue has been staying asleep these last 13 months, not getting to sleep. Now, she is sleeping like an old pro! This, despite all the turmoil and upheaval of the last few weeks.

Now, for my next trick, I will make vegetables irresistible to her! You'll want to hang around for this one, folks! It's sure to be a doozy!