Sleep in Our House

When I first met Rob, he was a champion sleeper. He could sleep anywhere, anytime. He would go to sleep at 10 and sleep past noon any day of the week. And then he would take a good three hour nap later that day.

Then we had Maddie and she was a champion not-sleeper. Seriously ever since God created insomniacs he's been practicing to get it right for Maddie. She started out pretty good for a newborn, sleeping four hours at a time. But by three months, she had settled into the night terrors, and she's never really shaken them. She regularly wakes up in a panic and terrified. I constantly wonder why she didn't get his ability to sleep.

In recent months, she's gotten much better. She has a few bad nights here and there. However in the month or so, she's gotten a little more casual about trying to get herself back to sleep when she wakes up. So we're working on that.

I'm starting with this:

A quick little calendar I drew out to help Maddie see her own progress. Every day that she sleeps well (that can include going to bed nice and easy, sleeping all night or at least going back to bed easily after she wakes at night), she gets to put a sticker on the calendar. When she gets five stickers in one week, she gets to go to the store and buy stickers. We just got a super big reward for last week because she did so well. She got a sticker book (seriously, I may love this stuff as much as she does).

You'll also note on the calendar that we were counting down to the day Maddie got her big girl bed. Next month, we start counting down to something else. Stay tuned for more!