It’s Labor Day weekend, and that “bit of something” that Olivia had–well, we’ve all got it now, including poor little Calvin. But rather than talk about the miserable part of our weekend, I thought I’d focus on the positive, and tell a fabulous story about Olivia. I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I just can’t get over it!
Let’s just be honest here, Olivia has been a regular nightmare when it comes to going to bed. She’s never been on a schedule, has never taken naps, and has never gone to bed without either screaming herself to sleep or falling asleep on the couch with us, and then us tip-toeing her to her crib, and literally holding our breath and praying she doesn’t wake up when we put her down.
But about six weeks ago, in anticipation of Calvin coming, I put Wyatt in charge of putting Baby O to bed. He started having a really good routine with her. Still, Wyatt either stayed in the room with her until she fell asleep, or he eventually would leave and she’d scream herself to sleep (but those screaming times were getting shorter and shorter).
About two weeks ago as Wyatt was in the middle of some CE credits, and not getting home in time to put Olivia to bed, I started putting her to bed following the routine too. And now, if we’re both home, we both do it. Olivia gets put into a clean diaper and PJ’s, and then she brushes her teeth (she loves to brush her teeth!), we read books, and before the last book, we tell her that it’s the last one, and after that we will say prayers and go to bed. We tell her this so she knows what’s coming. We ask her if she will go to sleep when we put her in bed, and we ask over and over until she agrees. Usually we have to ask two or three times. After the last book we kneel down and say our prayers, generally a vocabulary regurgitation for Olivia. And then we put her in her crib, she lays herself down, and we sing songs to her.
Here in lies the problem. Either we have to sing until she falls asleep (as long as 45 minutes at times) or we leave after a few songs, and the screaming sets in.
But last night . . . we sang a few songs, and then left, telling her we would come back and check on her. And she said okay, and stayed laying down, and no screaming we heard! We did go check on her after a few minutes, and she was still awake, but not crying. She eventually fell asleep, but I’m not exactly sure when because I wasn’t there, AND I couldn’t tell by the lack of crying. YEAH OLIVIA!! I am so SO proud of her. I hope this can become a new norm rather than amazingly unique experience.