Will we ever get her sleeping?

We have a wonderful 19 month old girl. She is starting to talk (string two words together), she runs, she climbs, she laughs, she loves her baby doll, and she is very healthy. She is a joy, and such a gift! She has had a couple colds and a fever once. The only major challenge I have is her sleeping habits. Lent hits mothers of young children in different ways and the hardest part of lent for us (well lets just say for the whole past year) is sleep deprivation. Once would think this laughable with a small family like ours, with children who are spaced out. Yet this one child has only slept two nights of sleep (6-7 hours straight since she arrived.) Every other night she awakens Mom 2-3 times. Now when she was born I had already formed my plans of organized sleep training. I had read some books, and I figured as an older Mom I was going to be on top of this. I could nurse, and comfort and still get a baby to sleep except for maybe being up once a night by say six months.  She's the fourth child after all, she'll be like the others or better, and with our busy life I know sleep is necessary and good.

Then she arrived in all her sweet self and she came with bad reflux. She began life only able to sleep sitting up in our arms collapsed against our chest, and this only after hours of crying and walking the house. Mom was a zombie. I changed diets, I took her to the top lactation guru, and some nights I passed her off to Auntie or Dad when I was desperate for a few hours. They saved my sanity. We didn't sleep much. She had cranio-sacral therapy and this improved her suck, as well as her reflux some. I was won over a bit. Yet she really struggled with nights.  She wouldn't sleep on a wedge, she couldn't sleep on her side, but she could sleep on Mom's chest with Mom on a wedge. Maybe I was duped, but I  caved. That's just not what this Mom working long hours homeschooling three kids, who also has them in sports, music, etc. and having a very busy husband needed on her plate. We added Dad being sick and needing to recoup, my extended family sick and the heartache of them far, and then watching this littlest one also struggle and cry just hurt too much. She was someone I could comfort. Yet even holding her, there were long, painful nights, that really I was 'being with' her in her struggles. We finally tried medication,  all in attempts to help ease pain. It's been a long haul. Mom is probably to blame too, not simply reflux, but poor choices. But I have learned to have mercy on myself knowing I do my best in the situations given, and at least God knows we make the best choices despite exhaustion. Nothing about the entire year was easy, except that in giving everything, I found my heart expanded. I found we could get through something really, really hard, with grace. I am also more merciful, to myself and others. I can never again hear a Mom tell me how her child doesn't sleep, or that she is so tired she wants to drop and think a critical thought about her choices. I just pray for her and admire her for loving with all her heart. I know I was at the service of this child in her pain, and I helped her through it. I also know I needed the other people in the house to get sleep, so they could get up for work, etc.  I know she would have survived crying it out, and maybe I should have done it. Yet I hope somewhere deep inside her she will now carry with her a sense of comfort she can't express when pain comes. Each child and each parent has different needs, and to find a way to serve and love the needs of others is a unique and messy thing.  I have never had anything harder with the kids that took from me personally for length of time, than our reflux nightmare. So many nights I lay awake to nurse and sing or was awakened and trying to be patient, with us both. Somewhere in it all, I have learned to love sleeping with her very nearby. She is very peaceful. She reminds me to stop and be, and I love to take in her babyness. I don't aspire to co-sleeping (husband just doesn't sleep with it) but we took over daughter's room and she slept on my chest. Her breathing synchronized, she reminded me that life is precious and comforting her reminded me that I could do something to ease at least one person's pain. I couldn't take away my husband's illness, or my parents' suffering, but I could help this little girl in her moment. But when one doesn't sleep, one does begin to notice how others do.  I started to feel like everyone else in this world slept and longed for the day when I would too. I am still longing. Yet what started out as the crying and pain that hurts my heart to hear, drew me to be able to say: I'm all yours, take whatever you need and please be comforted. A baby is a gift that helps you give beyond all capacity. In return she knows if she struggles Mom will be there. Yet somewhere between birth and adulthood that level of Mom sacrifice has to end, at least in the nighttime department.  Somewhere Moms find the line to draw and ease a child onward, so they have a few brain cells left.

 So 19 months later, at 29 lbs, her reflux is almost gone, she's healthy, her final molar is coming in. Dad points out in his own understated way that it's far beyond time to help her learn to sleep. Since he is both as a doting father and the voice of reason, he elaborates to Mom how dear toddler is a bit of a tyrant in disguise. None of our children has nursed this long (they weaned on their own before now) or have been keeping me awake like this. Mom is tired, and everyone agrees it's time, to get Nipolean sleeping.

So how do you take a child who has been up 2-3 times a night to nurse, and help her sleep? Not easily. Being tall (this past vacation has shown us) she can climb out of pack n play or crib easily, can open doors, can climb over and up chairs, slide them up and climb onto counters, tables, etc. and really is only completely 'safe' when fast asleep or on a ride buckled up in the car. So our small safe zone during nap times or night times has disappeared with the hurling baby jumping out of everything when we aren't looking.

So we are in the midst of trying to figure out what to do and create a safe area/room for her. We are trying to teach her not to climb out of the zones she is given, and even stay off the ladder to the bunk bed. In response, she demonstrates her record of climbing up ladder to visit brother in 6 seconds. We are trying to rub her back and shush her to sleep and sing a little, and rock, and nurse only once at night. In response she rockets from silence to hysteria to even occasionally puking with seemingly no effort at my lack of yielding mucho leche on demand. This is perhaps the cutest tyrant we have ever known!  I wish a pack n play or crib came in extra tall for families like ours, but I know it doesn't, I looked.  So far we've tucked her 5 times tonight. It's our little big momentary challenge.  I'm up late trying to remember this can't last forever. This dear girl will somehow learn to sleep, not just for Mom, but for herself. So far, Hawaiian music, (the Brother Cazamero) and an extra blanket might help console her, as she learns to get through this. Mom is trying to be very mature and remember that she will forgive me for this in the morning, and she will be affirmed all day long by everyone. I am trying to remember the words of a friend with triplets, who urged me not to wait to long to help her sleep. She knew sleep deprivation, and she got them sleeping early, and they are lovely girls now. They forgave her, if they even needed too. Well, safe zone making awaits us, and hopefully a little more sleep. We're hoping maybe by Easter, hopefully Easter this year.