Too Tired to be a Good Parent

It seems like for the past 2 weeks Maggie has woken up crying between the hours of 1 and 3 am. So I have done what any exhausted parent would do: stick her in bed with us and try to get some shut eye. Now there are some co-sleeping families out there that are fine with that. I'm not one of them. In the waking hours of day I think to myself, "Sleeping with a kid sucks. They kick. They claw. They take up half the bed. It's ridiculous." And yet the next time Maggie calls in the wee hours, I grab her from her crib and once again trade in a good night's sleep for one interrupted every 2 seconds (as if my full bladder, sore hips, and aching back don't already do that.)

Finally I decided to go back to what my sleep expert pal Vhari had taught me: let Maggie cry it out. But the plot thickens. Maggie's climbing skills on the playground translated to every mother's worst nightmare: Mags figured out how to climb out of her crib.

No longer could I even hope to let Maggie just cry it out. Now I would have to chase her down, put her back in her crib, chase her down, put her back in her crib, chase her down, put her back in her crib, THEN let her cry it out. While I continued to chase her and put her back in her crib. The thought was more than I could bear. So, I resigned myself to being kicked all night by a toddler rather than face the chase.

Then I figured that there had to be another way. I went to the bookstore and purchased "The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep--From Birth to Age 5." Out of all the sleep books, I chose this one for several reasons.

1. It said "easy" in the title.
2. Conan O'Brien endorsed it. Dan said that's kind of silly to buy the book just cause Conan used it, but you know... Conan is funny and he stays up way late. He probably wouldn't be so funny if the book didn't work and he was up getting kicked all night by his kid. He'd probably be rather surly (like me lately).
3. It was shorter than the other books. I feel really dirty admitting that. I mean, I was raised by a librarian and an English teacher. Choosing one book over another just because its shorter makes me feel like a cheater. Its almost as bad as Cliff's Notes which I severely despise.
   
4. I really want to know how to get my twins to sleep "from Birth to Age 5." That's a really long time and it would really save us a lot of money and stress if I didn't have to worry about taking care of them too much since they'd just be sleeping until they were in Kindergarten. Besides, kids are cutest when they're sleeping.

The book has lots of good stuff in it. But the sad part was when it said that you shouldn't transition a kid from a crib to a bed before age 3, unless they were climbing out of it. But you definitely shouldn't transition them to a bed if a) you recently moved or b) you recently had a baby or would be having a baby within 2 months. So, basically we're going to scar Maggie for life when we put her in a bed. Hopefully she'll recover emotionally before she graduates college.

Anyway, tonight was my first night using the program. We did our good night routine and then the crying and climbing from the crib ensued and I put her back in there 30 times (that was NOT an exaggeration). First she cried for me ("Maaa!") then she cried for Dan ("Daaa!") and finally she cried for her binky ("Beee!") which she incidentally kept throwing from the crib. But after only 10-15 minutes she gave up the fight and sobbed into the mattress. Success. Hopefully she doesn't wake up ready for a slumber party at 1:00. If she does, it'll be Dan's turn for the chase. Wish us luck.