Sleep Updates

For the last three nights (including one night with Ebba babysitting), Miranda has sung herself to sleep. We do our normal routine, leave the room and then she screams for a bit, getting out of bed over and over. This goes on for a few minutes and then Michael has a "talk" with her. Then she lies in bed and sings to herself for about 15 minutes. Elizabeth usually is already asleep and Micheal and I sit there and listen to her sing Hey Lolly, Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle, The Wheels on the Bus and Walking Cane. It's a huge relief to know she can actually get to sleep on her own like she used to.

Unfortunately, for the last three days, she has been waking up from naps screaming bloody murder. They all go down easy for naps most days and are typically asleep within 5-10 minutes after the final song. Then about 60-75 minutes later, Miranda wakes up screaming and crying. It isn't some night terror. She is truly awake and just screams and cries. The first day, I tried to get her calmed down and back to sleep, but I completely failed so I took Parker and Elizabeth out of the room let her scream. Day two and three, I just let her scream. Parker was so upset about being woken up. Yesterday, she screamed for about 45 minutes before I went to check on her. Today, about 30 minutes. Both days, she is screaming "ALL DONE CRYING!!!!!!" Parker, who actually does the exact same thing...a fact I reminded him about, kept saying, "But she isn't all done crying, is she?"

She does the same thing in the middle of the night, and has been for a couple weeks now. Some nights it's every couple hours. Some nights it's only once or twice. We are all losing our minds. So in the interest of the family's sanity, we've tried a few things. First we tried to sleep train her again, by just putting her back in bed when she did it and I slept in the back house with the other two. This lasted only two days as poor Michael wanted to kill himself and everyone around him after dealing with that nonsense. Two nights ago, I slept in the back house with Miranda. It went pretty well and she slept until 6:30, a record I think. She would wake up start to freak out and then see me and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, that morning Elizabeth and Parker decided to get up early. Last night, Michael needed to catch up on sleep so he went to the backhouse alone and I held down the fort inside. Miranda came into bed with me at midnight. Elizabeth, who woke up screaming "Pee" at 3:30 due to peeing out of her diaper, came up then as well. Parker waited until 5:30am to join us. I sent them all downstairs at 6am to play. Jesus.