Sleep "Problems"

People always say enjoy your children while you can, they grow up so fast. One moment they are dependent on you for their every need, the next they want to do everything on their own. Our oldest daughter has always been very independent. As soon as she could do something on her own, and even well before, she wanted no help or advice. Even as a baby this was clearly part of her personality. I enjoyed singing and rocking her to sleep, but by five months old she would have none of it! I placed her in her crib alone, closed the door, and she went fast to sleep. Already Mom wasn't needed. I had only been rocking her for a month at that point; do moments pass that fast?

As she grew older a common phrase heard around the house was "Me do it!" or "Me turn!". She was very eager to do everything herself, but grew very frustrated if she couldn't. She suffered from the same character flaw as her dear old Mum. She wanted to know how to do something, not learn how to do something. Is stubbornness genetic? As frustrated as she would get, and as I would get being held hostage during the whole learning situation, I really couldn't blame her. I recognized a lot of myself in her frustration. Patience has never been one of my strong suits. Nor is asking for help when I know I should. I have no idea why, and I doubt Miss. A understands why it bothers her as well.

She is nearly three and a half now. Very confident and independent as ever. She still gets upset and frustrated with things she finds challenging, but she's starting to learn patience. (Maybe she'll teach me!) She even says "thank you for teaching me" when she allows us to walk her through something. She is definitely growing up quickly. Which is why the occasional sleep problem isn't really a problem per se.

The poor sweetheart, from time to time, wakes up crying for no particular reason. Most of the time she's still half asleep. If you go to her and ask her what's wrong, it just seems to make things worse. "Do you need a drink? Do you need to go to the bathroom? Did you have a bad dream?" Bombarding her with questions sends her into a full bodied meltdown. There's really only one thing you can do. Just hold her until she calms. This post is only being written now because this is one of those nights. I gave her a big hug and held her until she quickly fell back to sleep in my arms. Then slipped her back into bed with her little pink Foo Bear. Snug as a bug. As she gets older she she won't need me to do things for her, but she'll always need me to be there for her. No one ever out grows that.