Sleep Victory

We struggled with sleep with Ella for a couple months in late fall last year. She wouldn't go to sleep at bedtime, and wouldn't go back to sleep during night wakings. It was painful, like having a newborn painful. I usually ended up playing musical beds having that where-am-I feeling every time I woke up. Finally we told her, "Mommy and Daddy are not coming in your room at night, no matter what. We will only come in if you throw up or are bleeding so badly you need to go to the hospital." She had two terrible nights involving up to two hours of screaming at our door, knocking, stomping around and throwing things. And then it was over, and she would go back to sleep on her own. Then we tackled her going to sleep without me laying in her bed with a sticker chart (which previously had not worked). She only earned a sticker if she went the whole night without even a whimper. And she finally did it, and got a trip to the carousel. Thankfully we all survived yet another trying phase.