Last night started like any other night -- we put Adelaida to bed around 7:15 (our goal is 7:00, but she sometimes goes to bed as late as 7:30), then had a quiet evening to ourselves before going to bed around 10:30.
At 11:30, Adelaida woke us up crying. She sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night, but almost always goes right back to sleep. Last night, however, she kept crying, so I went in to her room to check on her. She stopped crying immediately when I went in, and I held her for a few minutes, then put her back in her bed. She laid down readily, clutching her sippy cup, and was quiet until I started to leave the room, when she started crying again. I stayed with her for a few minutes, rubbing her back, and she seemed ready to sleep -- until I left the room, when the crying started again. I left anyway, thinking that she'd quiet down soon, but she didn't. This was repeated several times over the next hour -- Adelaida crying whenever we weren't in the room with her, then quieting down and going to sleep when we were there.
About an hour into this process, Dale and I decided to give her some pain reliever (she is teething, so maybe her mouth hurts?) and change her diaper (not dirty, but wet, which could be bothering her?). This was apparently Adelaida's cue that it was play time. I went back to bed at this point, while Dale laid down on the floor in her room to try to sleep while she played around (and on top of) him.
After an hour, Dale decided he needed sleep, so we switched roles -- Dale slept, while I laid down in the bonus room and let Adelaida play in that room. I rarely see her as happy as she was in the middle of the night -- she was dancing, and playing with her puzzles, and putting plastic rings on her arms, and laughing so much! It's unfortunate that this was all happening between 12:30am and 2:30am! I laid down on the sofa and tried to sleep, but it is hard to sleep when you are laying down and a toddler runs up to you, pokes you in the eye, and loudly declares "ee-ye." She also found my nose ("noooo") and mouth (she open her mouth and says "aah" to mean mouth) and hair ("ha-eyre," accompanied by Adelaida pulling my hair). After a very long hour, I tried to put Adelaida down to bed again. She cried for about a minute when I left the room, but ended up sleeping the rest of the night, and well into the morning (we finally woke her up at 8:00, to help prevent another occurrence of last night's lack of sleep).
We had planned to take Adelaida swimming today, but last night's lack of sleep coupled with a late nap today (she again didn't want to sleep and kept climbing out of bed!) prompted us to change our plans for the day, and we all three napped this afternoon!
Tonight has been normal so far -- bed at 7:10, and she went right to sleep without fussing at all. We're getting ready to go to bed now, looking forward to an uninterrupted night of sleep!
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