Let's Talk About Sleeping

Sleeping is a funny thing. When you get a lot of it, all seems right in the world. When you don't have enough of it, things always seem to go wrong. For the past couple of months Maeve has been doing decently in her bed with the occasional wake up to come and visit us. A trip to the potty and back in bed always seemed to cure that. More recently however Cara has also been waking up. Now one kid is doable. But two kids? Brings out some pretty scary monsters in me and Kenyon. Let me give you and example of one of our nights.

7:00/7:20 p.m.- Kids go to bed.
All is well with the world until I decide to go to sleep (I swear they KNOW when I get into bed).
10:00 p.m.- Cara wakes up screaming.... takes about an hour or so to get her back to sleep (teething? wet? Who knows.)
11:15 p.m.- Maeve the visitor. "Mommy, you left me. Come lay with me." Me, "I will only stay for a little while."
12:00 p.m.- I leave and get into bed (now exhausted).
2:00 ish a.m.- Maeve again. She comes into our room with a pillow, blanket, and her lovey. "Okay mommy, I will sleep with you then."

Now, one of two things happens here. I either give in and have her sleep with us and it is the worst sleep ever or I bring her back to her room (with Kenyon) and he lays on the floor and I sneak out after tucking her in. Either way, it is a lose-lose situation.

4:00 a.m.- Cara wakes up screaming and won't go back to sleep. Kenyon rushes in there (half in a stupor) and picks her up to rock her. Takes an hour before she falls back to sleep. He crawls back into bed just to have Maeve kicking him in the back.

6:00 a.m.- WAKE UP! Now, you would think they would sleep in, right? No. Not exactly. They are wide awake acting like they got the best sleep in the world. Maybe they did (I mean, one is in our bed all warm and cozy and the other is in our arms half the night)!

We are exhausted. We have tried to let Cara cry it out in the middle of the night (she is so freaking stubborn- she yelled for an hour for us and Maeve slept through it but we didn't). We are in a very rough spot because they share a room. We don't want one waking the other up. And so we have to hope and pray that this is a phase and we will get through it. I noticed yesterday that Cara is cutting her sharp teeth. Maybe when they come through it will be better. I have learned some things though throughout this process that I would like to share. And by no means am I an expert! Take it or leave it:

-At three in the morning, it is NOT a good time to have a discussion on what to do about sleep management. Wait until morning.
-When you are the ones not getting sleep, all books and advice go out the window and you do what you have to in order to survive.
-There is no point in trying to figure out why they are getting up- especially if they can't talk! Just deal with it instead of analyzing why.
- And laugh about it in the morning....otherwise it will just make you crazy!

:)