Are you getting tired of me whining about sleep deprivation, yet?

Tough. Penny shifted from waking up multiple times early in the evening to waking up multiple times in the latter half of the night, and that was even worse. I was up from 1 until well after 3:30 - she fell asleep several times in there, but every time I tried to put her back to bed, she woke up and started crying again. But finally, finally, I got her there.

At 4, she started crying, and I whimpered into my pillow. Matt said, "I'll go get her. I'll give it a try." And I didn't think she'd take Matt, but I was willing to do anything for just one more minute of sleep, so I nodded.

And she went silent. Oh, thank the gods, I thought, as I went back to sleep.

A bit later, I woke up a little, and my neck was stiff, so I rolled over, and - whap! my hand hit Matt's back.

I looked at the clock. 4:20. That was fast. He came back to bed, and I didn't even notice? Wow, I must be even more tired than I thought.

I snuggled back down with my pillow, and then Penny started to cry. I groaned.

"I'll get her," Matt mumbled.

"Didn't you just get up at 4?"

"Huh?"

I'd dreamed the 4:00 wakeup. But Matt got up at 4:30, and it took Penny a bit longer than in my dream, but she did finally consent to sit on his lap instead of mine, so I got to go back to sleep for another hour.

(But that time, I noticed when Matt came back to bed. Didn't wake up enough to look at the clock, but I was aware of his presence.)

Tonight. Tonight we start the sleep training.

Tonight, we'll give her a bottle around 7:30 with water and her long-term medicine in it, and then we'll change her into her sleeper, and she'll sit on one of our laps with her stuffie Piglet (the latest favorite toy) while we read her a few books, and then at 8, when she's drowsy but not yet asleep, we'll kiss her good night and take her and Piglet upstairs and tuck them into bed.

And then we'll check on her at 8:05. And then 8:15. And then 8:30. 8:45, 9:00, 9:15... However long it takes for her to go to sleep.

We will not turn on the light in her room. We will not stay in her room for more than a minute or two. We will not pick her up.

If, after she finally manages to go to sleep, she wakes up and starts crying again, we will start the process again. A check after 5 minutes. And then after 10. And then after 15. And 15, and 15 again until she goes back to sleep again. And we will not turn on the light, and we will not stay with her for more than a couple of minutes, and we will not pick her up.

We will not get much sleep.

And then tomorrow night, we'll do it again, only we'll wait 10 minutes for the first check, and then 15, and then the rest of the checks will be at 20-minute intervals.

And Saturday night, we'll start at 15 minutes and increase to 25-minute intervals.

And so on. For a minimum of two weeks, according to the information I've read, in order to give her time to realize that yes, that really is the way things are going to be from now on.

We'll be keeping a log of our check-times, and any times we had to make exceptions (e.g., if she cries until she throws up, we'll have to pick her up to clean her up and change her and put new sheets on the bed) and - hopefully - our (her) progress.

One reads miracle stories about babies who start sleeping through the night on their own after only three days of this.

One thinks that perhaps one should not get too hopeful, however.

So, yeah, Matt and I will be up late tonight, and perhaps some in the middle of the night, and for probably several nights hereafter as well. We'll be looking for activities to distract us from the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking sound of our daughter's pitiful wails.

We'll be watching movies, and playing on Neopets. If other Hallers are up and about, we might Hall. Matt talked about possibly upgrading our Windows computer to Win98. (It's an old, old Win95 box. I don't think it can handle anything more recent than Win98.) I might try to write some, but I doubt it will happen because I need to concentrate to write.

So if you're up late (or not that late, but are in a time zone to the west of us) and would like to chat, by all means drop me a line.

--Liz