Night Hell

Elizabeth's screaming in the middle of the night has reached epic levels. (Just when Miranda stopped screaming at night of course. So we have Miranda crying and screaming during the day and Elizabeth screaming at night.) Three nights ago, Elizabeth was up five times between 11:30 and 5:30. It was hell. I had enough and said "we must do something! tough love, please!"

So the next night, Michael dealt with it. Without going into too much gory detail, suffice it to say, Michael described the night "as a new low in parenting" for him. She was up and down all night long. Screaming, crying, opening the door, screaming under the door. Waking up Miranda, Parker. More screaming. Just awful. For everyone.

Michael promptly bought a door knob safety thingy (which we have never had before) and put it on. He put the kids to bed and I went out with friends. When i got home around 10pm, he said she had already had one 20 minute scream fest. Uh oh. But the good news was, she stopped at 20 minutes, went back to bed and went to sleep. Michael then escaped to the back house (where I had been the night before) and wished me good luck.

And man, did I get lucky. Not one peep out of any of them until 5:50am. Considering they were all sleep by 7pm, I thought this was a wild success and even let them out of the room before 6:30, our standard getting up time.

Michael is back on duty tonight. Elizabeth explained to me that she would pee in the potty that we left in her room if she had to go, would find her own blanket if she lost it, and would pull the covers up by herself if she needed them. She said she would do no screaming and crying. Let's hope she is telling the truth.