Bedtime Antics

My girls really seem to have the tag teaming thing down pat. This week I started the "cry it out" stage with Mia so I could get her back on a Babywise schedule and it was tough. On Monday night, it took 45 minutes of her crying before she passed out exhausted. The crying out stage is also difficult when there is a toddler in the house because Makaela kept yelling down to me, "Mia needs you", as if I didn't know that. During this time, there were a few respites when she would doze off but within 5 minutes, she would wake and start crying all over again with a vengeance- almost as if she would wake and cry even louder to show me that she had not thrown in the towel just yet. Tues- took us 25 minutes, by Wednesday it was 5 and then Thursday and tonight, after feeding her at 8:30, I set her down and she went to bed immediately. The hope was to get her body adjusted to an 8:30 bedtime because that would give me some quiet time to get lunches prepped, bags packed and the house cleaned before I turn in. However, this did not go as smoothly as I had hoped.

Just as Mia got better with bedtime, Makaela got worse. Makaela has always gone to bed fairly well (napping is a totally different story), but since she has gotten a new night light, she has been sleeping on the floor in her room. I come to find out that there's a whole bunch of toys and books stashed under her bed, so while she is supposed to be sleeping, she has been up playing and the reason why she loves the night light is because it allows her to see all her toys (and it inadvertantly keeps her awake). Since she is up, she gets restless and bored in her room, so she has also started leaving her room (something she never did; even if she had to go to the bathroom, she would yell for me). She would come to the stairs and yell for me, asking for medicine, a band aid, water, or the famous "but I need you". So, like every exhausted mom, I tried coaxing, bribery and finally resorted to taking away privileges. I have scolded every night. Tonight, she had to sleep in her bed again (I took away the right to sleep on the floor) so she made a little bed on the floor for her stuffed rabbit and laid him down right next to her night light. As she is tucking her rabbit in, I hear her say, "Now, you lay here and don't get up- do you understand me? Alright!" As she walks away she turns around again to say, "If you get up, no carrots for you, do you understand me? You hear me? OK!"

You know that saying, "Women eventually turn into their mothers"? Well, I think Makaela has mastered that really early on. Poor girl...and here I thought she wasn't paying attention to me...perhaps she was paying too much attention.