Sleep Training

We all do it sometime (or several times) in the first few years of our child's life: sleep train them to adapt to our schedules. We were lucky that we haven't had to sleep train Scarlett too much during her first two years. Not that she's a perfect sleeper but she slept through the night around 3-4 months old and didn't hit her first major sleep bump until she was almost one. Back then, she had figured out how to stand up in her crib and would take several hours of crying bouts before finally falling asleep. This time, it's different. How so? Because she can talk and manipulate us! Our problem this time is that she wants to sleep in our bed with us. It's ironic that we have this problem because when we were in Hawaii after she turned one, we couldn't get her to sleep with us even though we tried! It was such a foreign concept to her at that time because she was so used to sleeping in her own crib. I think the problem really started in late July when I visited my family down in LA. It was just Scarlett and I so instead of putting her in the pack n' play (which she's outgrown already anyway), I had her sleep with me every night. She really enjoyed it! Aside from her kicking and squirming all throughout the night, I don't mind sleeping with her either. In fact, it's kinda nice. Well, ever since we got back from LA, she's wanted to sleep with us. It has happened off and on until about a month ago. Then it became 6 nights per week: we would bring her into our bed in the middle of the night because we're too tired to argue with her. Then, it got to the point where she would insist on, "I sleep in mama's bed" when we put her to bed. I gotta tell ya: having a baby cry might seem heartbreaking but having a toddler cry/scream "mama! Come! Mama come now! I want to sleep in mama's bed!" is even more heartbreaking. The first time, I broke down and brought her into our bed after listening to 15 minutes of it. I was almost in tears! So to break that pattern, I finally decided to send my husband in to quiet her down, even though she asked for me. After a week of this, she's gotten better. Now, she's accepted the fact that my husband will not bring her to bed so she eventually goes to sleep after some protesting. However, she's gotten into the pattern of waking up in the middle of the night (12:30am, or 2am, or 4am, etc.) and crying to come to our bed. We've been too soft so far so we just bring her to our bed. Maybe it's more selfish - we don't want to lose a night of sleep. Eventually, we'll have to pay for it though. But for now, she's claimed the middle spot in our bed and somehow, our king-sized bed has become a half-twin-sized bed. For someone as small as her, she sure takes up a lot of room!