Let me start by saying sleep has always been a big challenge for me and A. I love sleep. I love to sleep in. I am a much better person with sleep. She doesn't really seem to care.
Her first year she slept great through the night but was a bad napper. I spent that entire year hoping for her to learn the art of napping so I could have some "me" time. My husband traveled every week for work and I was home by myself with her a majority of time. This resulted in her being very mommy attached and me getting no time for myself. (Did I mention she didn't take long naps?) So I got sleep at night and was rested, but had NO sanity.
After her first birthday she started taking 2 1 hour long naps a day and slept all night. Little did I know that these months would become my nirvana. These were the best days and I had yet to realize it. It was at about 16 months that I thought, this kid thing is a breeze. She was happy, I was happy. She spent a lot of time with daddy so the "me" time just poured in. Pure perfection.
When she was about 18 months, we moved into our current house. I was nervous of this for many reasons. Would she be ok with the new house and how would she adjust? I assumed a week of not wanting to go to sleep on her own and life would be that perfection I described above again. Well you not what they say about assuming? It sure made an ass out of me. After a week she did great going to sleep on her own but the night wakings began. First she woke up a few times a night. That turned into nights where sometimes it was almost every hour. She was napping during the day, but night, apparently was party time. We tried every trick in the book from coddling to crying it out. She cried. I cried. Rob may even have cried. It was rough.
After a few months I hit a wall. I wasn't quite sure what to do. When I thought I could figure out what was keeping her up, it would start all over again. I had worked up every theory from her being too cold to the irrational "there must be a ghost in our new house" to explain why she wouldn't sleep. We finally decided, since we weren't sleeping anyway, that it was time to take away the paci. That pretty much made it worse for about a week, then she got over it. After that, she started sleeping again. Hooray! It must mean the paci is as evil as they say....
We returned to sleep for a month. All night. Every night. Naps during the day. My perfect world had returned.
Now I have a little of both worlds. Some nights she sleeps great but wakes up really early (did I forget to mention the 5 am wake up phase that happened in the middle of all of this) and then naps are short. But if she takes a good nap, the next night results in a lot of wakes up. On days she takes shorter naps, she then sleeps great at night. Confused? Yea, me too. Thus leading to my dilemma, Sanity or Sleep?
The best answer would be to get her on a schedule that is consistent. Anyone who says this to me might get whacked. I have tried and continue to try to put her down at the same time, same bedtime routines, anything really to produce the same results day in and day out. I tried cutting out nap which lead to a full nights sleep but to a crazy, mad toddler the next day. She isn't quite ready for that...
So maybe a few times a week, I get a full nights sleep. Always waking early, but I am getting used to that as I would rather sleep through the night then sleep in these days. (She is training me well right?) So I pick sleep. But then there are those days that she naps great and I get 2 hours of time to myself which I can watch tv, clean, work out, do whatever and that is great as well. Ok, I pick sanity.
Both have huge advantages for me and I can't decide which is better for me. Both are truly needed to be a balanced, happy person. But another thing I have learned as a parent is that balance isn't always that easy to achieve. So for now, I will relish my few days of sanity and a few days of sleep. Nothing lasts forever right? :)
So after all that, I still haven't solved anything. And even if I did, it would change tomorrow. It is the beauty of parenting. Because at the end of the day, it is all about her. And what she needs. And I am perfectly happy with that.
