Sleep

We subscribed the the family bed idea. Well I did - I think the husband just went along with it because I wanted to. For the last several years the kid has gone to bed in her own bed but crawls into ours between midnight and 3am.

She is 5 now and we decided that she needs to stay in her bed all night. The other sleep problem is that one of us would lay down with her until she fell asleep. If it was me, I would often fall asleep too and there goes those precious few hours alone with the spouse or a good book.

We have had some success the last two nights. The husband and I played tag team in getting her to sleep on her own (one of us is sitting in the rocking chair in her room). But tonight I was on my own. She started to have a tantrum and began to weep. She begged me to lay down with her and said that this whole process was "not fair to kids.". I asked her if Bernard would help and she said maybe.

Bernard is a stuffed animal. A Saint Bernard dog. It is the only toy I still have from my childhood. I got the ragged filthy dog off te shelf in my room - he is missing his nose and his leg is taped up. I handed him to my daughter. She took him in her arms and stopped crying. Within 5 minutes she was asleep. Bernard got me through a lot as a kid. He protected me from all the bad things in the world and all the things that go bump in the night.

I think my daughter felt his mojo.