Samantha's first blog

Posted By pamelamyers on April 6, 2018

Mark and I have gotten really fed up with Samantha not staying in her bed at night and coming into our room waking me up and insisting on getting in our bed. Enough is enough! So, starting in mid-February, we laid down the law! No more in our bed. We knew she was going to wake me up, but I told her I was marching her right back to her room. The first couple of nights were awful. She woke me up, I swear, what felt like every few hours. I don’t know what it is with her. She just cannot stay in her bed. She tells me, “I just wake up” and I explained that everyone rouses at night, but that doesn’t mean you get out of bed. Just stay there and close your eyes and you will go right to sleep again. After the first few days, it became twice per night that she was coming in to get me. I would go in her room, pop her back in bed, and within 5 or 10 minutes, she was fast asleep. Well, that got old too. Why am I getting up just so she can fall right asleep again? She can do that without my help. So we starting telling her once per night and that was it. She stuck to that for a bit and lo and behold, the kid managed to stay in her bed all night! For a short time anyway. A few times she woke up really early and I told her it was too early to be up so she went back to her room and read or drew or whatever. Frankly, I didn’t care. I thought we were home free. Then she slept at Grandmom’s house and I think it threw her off because she was back to waking me a couple times per night.

I really hoped that once she had down the staying in her room at night for a few months, I could then ditch the staying with her at night until she falls asleep. I figured she’d get the idea that she can fall asleep on her own without anyone being there. Well, it looks like I may have to wait a little longer. She has finally starting staying in her bed all night (with a few minor exceptions) but I don’t think we are ready for me to stop staying with her at bedtime until she conks out. Baby steps…

Oh, wait, before I go….I didn’t mention the sleepwalking incident. One night in March she came to wake me and was rambling on and on about “Why won’t you let me do it? Just let me do it! Why?” then I realized that she was totally not responding to my voice that she was asleep so I steered her back to bed where she kept saying it, and then starting saying something like, “I put it behind the door!” Thankfully, she quieted down in a few minutes and that was that, but geez! I used to sleepwalk when I was a kid and we need that like a hole in the head, as the saying goes. It never ends around here. Nighttime is so much fun!

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