Our Little Sleepers

Josh and I have been feeling pretty bummed about our little Sophie being such a bad sleeper. We had finally gotten her to sleep through the night when she was 12 weeks old (twice as long as it look her sister), but after about a month of blissful sleep she stopped. After three more months of waking up once or twice each night I was becoming a horrible monster of a mommy. I'd hear her cry at night and squeeze my eyes tighter, a little voice in my head saying "She's going to go back to sleep, give it five more minutes." Somehow I will have myself half convinced that Josh has started lactating sometime during the night and would be overjoyed to get up and nurse the baby. Finally I would drag myself from bed, stumble to the girls room and swear to myself that tomorrow night I'd make her cry it out.
Eve and Sophie share a room since we are in a two bedroom apartment right now, so needless to say Eve wasn't getting much sleep either and had taken to spending half the night in transit between our bed and hers. Finally we'd had enough.
We set up an air mattress and sleeping bag in the living room for Eve, turned on the bathroom and kitchen fans for background noise and hunkered down for a long night. The first night Sophia cried off and on for close to an hour, but she went back to sleep and slept in until eight o'clock. Feeling triumphant we moved did it again the next night and this time she didn't wake up at all and slept for more than ten hours. Success! Triumph!! Feeling giddy with a full nights sleep we had a most wonderful day and decided to let Eve sleep on her little palate for the rest of the week to ensure that this was permanent. That weekend Josh went camping with David so I let Eve sleep on his side of the bed. Little did I know this night would bring great enlightenment on the sleep issues of our girls. As I was dropping off to sleep thinking of moving Eve back to her room in the morning I receive a swift kick in the small of my back. I turned to look at Eve and she, though still sleeping, was thrashing around and fussing. I figured it was a bad dream so I told her it was ok and rolled her over. This turned out to be the first of about four such fits. I put her next to the bed on her palate so I could sleep, but I still woke up every time she thrashed. Once I was awoken by her laughing hysterically in her sleep. As I lay there in the dark, my eyes wide open I realized our Sophie had been misunderstood. Could she talk she would have informed us that she would love to sleep all night but was disturbed by her fitfully sleeping sister across the room.
Eve has set up a cozy sleeping nook in our spacious closet complete with glowing stars and a little spot for her babies. Now all is quiet in our house at night except, of course for the little thrashing sound coming from the general direction of the master bedroom's closet.