Sleep...why does something so enjoyable have to be so hard??

I have oodles of picture post I should be doing, and probably a Payton update or 2 since she'll be 1 in a month, and I promise they are coming...someday when I have more than 3 minutes to myself that I'm not in a car. Which leads us to this post--sleep.

Payton is a baby, she's not supposed to sleep. We were very spoiled with Emily, she came home from the hospital sleeping 5 hour stretches at night and was sleeping through the night at 6 weeks when Chuck figured out she wasn't really hungry at night--she just wanted her pacifier back. We had a little bump around 1, where she woke up here or there, but went back down pretty easily, she transitioned from crib to big girl bed with little difficulty, and then last summer hit!

The summer of 2011, where, in the span of 3 months we had a baby, moved, started new jobs, started Em at a new school full time, and didn't sleep in the same place for more than a week at a time. And needless to say Em's sleep paid for it. She was up late, waking up all hours of the night, sleeping in, getting up early, you name it she did it. Fall came and she started going to school and we got in a nice little routine that seemed to solve the sleep issues. She went back to putting herself to sleep, sleeping all night and waking up happy. Until about 2 months ago.

  I'm not sure when the problems actually started. Payton still wasn't sleeping through the night, so I was sleeping in the living room with her to make feeding and wake ups as quick and easy as possible. Sometime in there, Em started waking up at night and crying. So in order to allow for maximum sleep time for everyone, I just started letting her sleep on the couch with me, when she would wake up, but the rule was she always had to start in her bed. And then in December we moved Payton to her crib (still not sleeping but she had outgrown the rock and play), so I got to move back to the big bed. Only Em didn't get the memo and kept waking up. After many long nights of sharing the couch with a 4 year old and 100 lb dog, I realized, we have a king size bed. This is much more comfortable than a couch, even with a 4 year old.

  So we started letting her come in bed with us. Yes, this was a bad idea, but when I had to be out the door by 7 and wasn't coming home until 5 and trying to keep up with everything else, sleep was at a premium. Add to this P was still waking up 1-3 times a night and I didn't care where she slept as long as she was sleeping! The rule still continued that she had to start the night in her bed, and only could come in if/when she woke up at night (this was happening pretty much every night). Some time in the last couple of weeks, she has started going to bed in the big bed, and we are failing in the sleep department. Again, I don't remember exactly when it happened, I think it had to do with her standing at her gate screaming, and waking Payton up, and Chuck and I doing whatever we needed to to keep at least 1 child asleep. So she started going to bed in the big bed and sleeping with us all night.
Only now, she won't go to bed by herself. So someone has to sit in there with her. Those 2 hours we used to enjoy when both kids were asleep and we could actually have an adult conversation...gone.

Last night Chuck was in with her for an hour and a half, lights off, quiet and she just kept going. I went in there and she was standing on her head, feet on the headboard, singing if you are happy and know it. I wasn't happy and decided we were going to kill this sleep monster. At this point it is going on 10:30. So the gate went back up, and into her room she went. She stayed quiet, and I don't know when she fell asleep, because I fell asleep before she did, but she did fall asleep in her bed. Until 3 a.m. when I woke up to the sounds of whimpering. I thought she was in her room and laid in wait for the pitter patter of feet to come into our room. She didn't come and was getting louder so I went hunting. I found her sitting on the living room floor, crying, and unwilling to go to the bed or couch. I finally got her calmed down and she and I spent the next 3 hours on the couch. I really don't like where this is going, but at this point don't know how to break it. I know we should just put her in her room and make her sleep in there, but that involves screaming and with P right across the hall, not possible. So I am at a loss. We may never sleep all night again....

P-T conferences

Em's parent teacher conference was tonight and overall she is doing really well! For reading she is doing everything she should be at this point and then some. She knows all of her letters and is working on matching sounds to letters. She also loves to rhyme and pretend read books to her friends. She is writing her name so much better than she was in the fall and is working on writing other letters. One of my favorite parts of the conference was seeing a self portrait she drew in Sept with her name and seeing one she did this week. She has made huge progress in her writing and drawing! She also has made great improvements in numbers--she rote counted to 32 and can identify numbers to 13. She is also able to count and match sets of objects. Her favorite center currently is the dramatic play center--she loves playing with her friends Nina and Jordan. She is also doing a good job socially playing appropriately with her friends.

The only concern her teachers had was her listening. They said some days she seems on and gets everything other days she seems off and like she isn't paying attention, but then will say something that indicates she was paying attention. She has a hard time listening to directions and often needs them repeated. Nothing we are super concerned with yet, but something we will be watching in the future. The other thing we discussed was her speech. She still has lots of artic errors and is hard to understand to people who don't talk to her all the time. We are taking her to the early childhood screening with the public schools so it will be interesting to hear what the speech path has to say about her speech. The only downside is that if we want her to get speech therapy she will have to go to the public school pre-k 1/2 days and then her daycare 1/2 but we would still be paying for full time at daycare, so I'm not sure what we will do if they want speech therapy. The preschool is essentially the same she gets through the preschool for all program so the only difference would be the speech path on staff. So we will see!