Zara vs. Sleep, Part Three

So remember how, many months ago, I bemoaned and groaned and wailed about Zara's sleep issues? And do you remember how we started co-sleeping because it was the only thing that worked? And also, do you remember how we've been vagabond traveling wanderers for the last three months and therefore have had no consistency or routine in our lives? You do?

Oh good.

Then you may also remember that David, in his aged wisdom, told me many, many months ago that even though Zara didn't want to sleep in her crib then, that when she got older, she'd get the hang of it. I wanted to believe him but friends had told me horror stories about children who refused to leave the parents' bed or who never learned to go to sleep on their own if they hadn't forced them to cry it out by a certain age.

But now that we're no longer vagabond traveling wanderers and have a home to call our own again (more on that later when I've emerged from the insanity that is unpacking), we decided to take another crack at getting Zara to sleep on her own and in her own crib. The first night, I crossed my fingers and put her in her crib for the night, fully expecting her to cry and cry her little baby tears and moan her little baby cries of misery until we could bear it no longer but to my astonishment, she cried for about 10 minutes, and then laid right down and went to sleep. For 8 hours. The next night, she went to bed even quicker and stayed asleep for 10 hours. (The next night we had a relapse. And by we, I mean me, because I missed having my baby in my bed and so when she make her first peep at about 1am, I promptly plucked her out of the crib and cuddled with her next to me. Apparently, this sleep thing is harder on me than it is on her.) Naps have also been going much better as well, especially if she only takes one nap a day. So we're not very far into this new sleeping arrangement but I think it's looking pretty promising. And David was right about her just needing time to figure it all out.

David said today that Zara is probably going to be schooling us a lot in the ways of parenting. And by that I mean, stubbornly refusing to do anything we try to get her to do until she's good and ready to do it.

The little punk.

But if she keeps sleeping through the night, I may just be okay with it.