Putting Kailyn to bed has recently become more difficult. We had her sleep trained a few months ago but then she started teething and we didn't want to neglect her, so we ended up attending to and carrying her, which led to some bad habits after she felt better.
It used to be really easy - in the past all it'd take was three songs and Baby K would be lights out. Then we could put her into the crib and she'd sleep for 12 hours straight. Not anymore. Tonight, when I tried the old triumvirate of songs (they are always the same, and always in the same order) she was still screaming loudly and showing no signs of getting sleepy. In fact, she'd worked herself into an inconsolable state. But since Helen and I decided to re-train her, we let her cry it out. 50 minutes later she was asleep, but not after we felt like the worst parents in the world and terribly guilty. Helen said, 'I hope she doesn't hate us in the morning.'
As a friend told me, 'Just when you think you've the parenting thing down, things change and you're scrambling to figure everything out once again.' I think that is so true. It's like those dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, the Velociraptor: they learned and adapted very quickly. In a way, Kailyn is like that - once we find something that works for her, she decides she doesn't like it anymore, and we need to find new (or old) ways to keep her happy. And us sane.
I'm not sure if that analogy really works, but it seems to make sense to me...
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