Right after my last post about her sleep troubles, Q and I adopted a different tactic to keep Zoe in bed. Although the “silent-return-to-sleep” approach worked for awhile, Zoe started getting frustrated over being repeatedly put back in bed. (I think it was because she thought she was going to miss out on something now that we were awake.) It was Q’s idea, then, to “play possum” (and NOT get up to return her to bed) when she came to us in the middle of the night. The first few times we tried this she would come in our room, stand by our bed, and whimper or cry – and I found it extremely difficult to not respond. (I don’t think there’s anything more torturous than having to ignore your child’s cries, even if it’s for their own good.) Eventually, though, it sunk in that we were sleeping and that she should be, too; now, if she comes in at all, she’ll stand by our bed for a minute or two, listen to our “snores” and then turn around and head back to bed. (At 5 AM yesterday, for example, she came in and looked around for a minute or two – then went back to her room and slept until 7. And last night, she didn’t get out of bed at all.) We might still be losing a few minutes of sleep here and there, but I’ll take that small interruption over long middle-of-the-night battles any day!

-M