Welcome!

Hello, and welcome!

I moved here over the weekend, and I’m still a little disorganized. There’s the blogroll to do, I haven’t even begun with the categories, and I’m not sure that I like the colour scheme, but all in good time.  I think I’ll like it here, though – hope you do, too!

Mary

Beginning of a Happy Ending

Anna’s parents were at their wits’ end. Sweet and smiley Anna, the chubby, chuckly baby? She does. not. sleep. Which means that during the day, sweet and smiley Anna has a dual personality: chuckly right after a nap, and then a steady deterioration into a cranky, thin-skinned grump. Well, that’s what I see during the days. In the evenings and all night long, all her poor parents get is the Demon Child version.

We’d had several conversations about it, with me doing a lot of listening and making a suggestion or an observation here and there. I’ve suggested books that seemed to be in keeping with the parents’ gentle approach, but instead of getting better, it was getting worse. From four or five wakings a night, they were entering phases where she would lay down, then stand and cry every ten minutes, for a couple of hours at a stretch. When I asked how they were faring with the books I’d suggested, mom just sort of wilted.

“I’m too tired to read an entire book. Could you just make me some kind of cheat sheet?”

So I did. Four books – Weissbluth, Pantley, Ferber, and Karp – condensed into six pages. I gave it to her last week. Took them a week to get through those six pages, because they really are REALLY tired, but on Friday mom declared,

“Okay. Tonight we start the Sleep Project. Wish us luck!” I did, sincerely. I thought about them at intervals all weekend – particularly since I wasn’t sure which method they’d opted for! Curiosity was mixed in equal parts with empathy. I almost called at a couple of points, but didn’t.

This morning, dad drops off the girl.

“We just wanted to thank you for those pages,” he says. “She had a fabulous night last night.”

“So it worked?” I asked.

“Yes, indeed. It was like Wagner’s Ring Cycle on Friday and Saturday, though.”

“Long and loud?”

“Long and loud, with very few intermissions.” He chuckles his laid-back, west-coast chortle.

“And last night?”

“And last night, she only woke once – at three, and only briefly.” The chuckle is replaced by a grin.

“Well done! Sounds like you’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Today, Anna did not need a morning nap. She always needs a morning nap! She’s sleeping now (the afternoon) after snuggling down into her bed with a sigh of contentment. She’s on her way!

The Ring Cycle. Heh.