Close your eyes, be still and go to sleep

Those words are spoken often at our house these days starting around 8pm every night. Of course, I didn't expect to be getting a lot of sleep with a 10 week old in the house. The surprising part is the 10 week old is sleeping better than the 2 year old. I should have never bragged about Brooke's sleeping patterns because she is paying us back now. The good news is once she gets to sleep, she pretty much stays asleep and stays in bed all night. However, the last couple of night it has been a two hour process just to get her to stay in her room and go to sleep.

As I said before, Brooke was a great sleeper in her crib. The problems began when we transitioned her to her big girl bed in January. We start the bedtime process around 8pm. We read a book or do story time on the kindle fire, do bedtime prayers, turn on her music and tuck her in. After we leave the room, she'll stay in her bed for a few minutes before she opens her door and starts her list of excuses. Some of the most common excuses: "I'm scared." "My insert body part here hurts. Kiss it." "I have burgers (aka boogers). I need to blow my nose." "I thirsty. I need juice." When we go to her room to take care of her complaint, she begs us to lay down with her. So I believe our first mistake was laying down with her when we first started the transition to the big girl bed. Now she expects that every night and she doesn't go to sleep when you lay down with her. She still wants to talk and sing. Trey has been taking toys/stuffed animals away from her when she comes out of her room now, but this now appears to be a game to her. Now she'll come out of the room and have a toy ready to give to him. So I think our next approach is just to ignore her. We will just put her back in bed, leave the room and ignore her. Hopefully, this approach will work.

My little girl looking so grown up 

playing before bedtime

I feel bad for her because she has had a big change in her life with a new little sister in the house. She is showing signs of jealousy towards AG now, so I want to be careful with her. If any of you moms out there have any suggestions on how to handle this problem, please let us know.

AG has been sleeping from 9pm to 4am the last few days. She still naps a lot during the day as well. I'll be returning to work full-time on the 14th and I will miss spending my days with her. She has the same primary care giver that Brooke had in the baby room at her daycare center, so I know she will be in good hands. She is starting to smile now and show some more of her personality. She looks so much like Brooke. It will be interesting to see if that changes as she gets older.

mini Trey