For the past couple of nights getting my daughter to go to sleep has been ridiculously hard. Our usual routine is to finish up dinner, brush teeth, change diapers, get into PJs and then read a book or two. Sometimes we don’t even read a book. My son usually drifts off to sleep without much effort. We nurse and he ends up asleep within minutes. My daughter nurses, unlatches, flaps her arms, kicks her legs, talks, sings, anything to keep herself awake. Tonight I had had enough. I had been trying to get her to sleep for over an hour and she wasn’t showing any signs of giving in anytime soon. I told her that nurse had gone to sleep and that she needed to go to sleep too. She whined and complained and I told her over and over again that nurse had gone to sleep and that she could have nurse once she woke up. Then she started telling me “up, up, up” to let me know that she was up and that she wanted to nurse.
I stood up with her and swayed and rubbed her back and shushed. She’d put her head down for a few minutes and then start complaining again. I continued to reassure her that she was fine and that she needed to go to sleep. Within minutes she stopped lifing up her head and I heard her breathing slow and she melted into me. I stood there with her in my arms for a few more minutes to ensure that she was indeed asleep and then shuffled over to the bed and gently laid her down. I glanced at the time and it took 27 minutes to get her to fall asleep. I’ve been reluctant to start this but overall it was fairly painless.
After I left the room I felt a jumble of emotions. Happy that I got her to go to sleep. Exhausted from lack of sleep. Guilty because I don’t like refusing her requests. Sad because she is no longer a tiny baby that needs me as tiny babies do. I look forward to having my body be my own again. This is the first step on the path to weaning her.
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