We finally felt that Madelyn was in a good place emotionally to start working on her sleeping. She has put on some weight, is eating great, has finally attached to "Mama" though "Baba" is still "God" in her book. We realize it is important to do this before the nanny takes over in November for the many obvious reasons.
Basically, she slept with her foster mother all her life, and then up till tonight, has never gone to sleep without either Joel or myself by her side. If she woke up alone later, she would cry and go looking for one of us. Couldn't really blame her, as she had learned to associate the presence of a warm loving body with her ability to fall asleep.
We are using a book one of our friends gave us, and tonight was our first night. The method uses "progressive waiting", starting at 3 minute intervals to wait before going in to briefly reassure and console them, and increasing to 10 minutes for the first night. It took Madelyn 1 hour and 45 minutes before she went to sleep, after about 7 or 8 visits. Not too shabby so far for our first night, although we are currently pending the first "arousal" (wakeup) any minute, and the night is young. Aunt Patricia thinks Madelyn is way too smart to fall for this......... She may be right!
All I can say is thank goodness for the "Crib Tent"! A big thanks to our friend Anita for turning us on to it.
Well, at least it looks Madelyn will be safe from mosquitos.
ReplyDeleteWe refer to it in private as "Madelyn's lacy prison", or aloud as "Madelyn's lacy arch"
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