Nighttime Parenting

Parenting children at night is a very stretching task. Fatigue easily leads to anger and grumpiness. Last night may have been one of the most challenging in our parenting careers yet.

Emma is almost 3 months and has spent those few months sleeping in a swing in our room. We did that so that we would avoid waking Ethan up at night. But, it's time to move Emma. She has been trying to roll over during the day. She still doesn't seem to care where she sleeps. I want to move her before she starts hitting some milestones... like crawling and rolling over. I know she will be practicing those things at night. And I want to move her before she gets so attached to sleeping in our room that it is hard to put her in a different room to sleep at night. Right now she doesn't know the difference and I would like to not have to fight that battle.

So, last night we tried putting Emma in her nursery (the room that shares a wall with Ethan's room). This is how it went.:

9:30- Ethan and Emma go to sleep. Emma is put in her bouncy seat in her crib.
2:30- Emma wakes up to nurse.
3:00- Ethan wakes up to see what is happening, Jason puts him back to bed.
3:30-4:30- Ethan gets up at least 2 more times.
4:45- Emma wakes up again to nurse.
5:30- Ethan wakes up one last time, Jason puts him back to bed.
6:00- Emma wakes up and needs help getting back to sleep.

This morning, Ethan told me,"Baby sister sleep new bed!". "Baby sister crying.". I think he knew something different was happening and he wanted to check it out. I told him that he didn't need to get up to help us. He could stay in his room and that mommy would take care of Baby Sister. We'll see how well he takes to that instruction.

I hope that tonight goes a little bit better. I remember when Ethan moved to a toddler bed. That was a rough night. Hopefully, this too will pass.Here's a glimpse of our wild and crazy but super fun children.