To sleep or not to sleep....

Emma answered that question last night with a decided "Not to sleep." I think all 3 of us were equally frustrated by it.

Let's back up and start at the beginning. We had a great day. Emma was an angel at church, had fun eating lunch, and enjoyed grocery shopping and running errands with us in the afternoon. We ended up being out a little later than we expected and Emma was STARVING when we got home. Dinner time ran late and before we knew it, we were just starting bath time when Emma is normally asleep.

At first, Emma acted completely normal. In fact, you wouldn't have even known it was after 7 just by watching her (usually we can tell that it's about 655 without even looking at a clock by her demeanor ). Unfortunately, though, she was very wound up and would not settle down after her bath. I tried everything, more stories, more snuggles, snuggles in Mommy's bed* but nothing worked. Finally, I put her in her crib and decided to let her cry it out. Emma immediately flipped onto her stomach, stood up and took a step to the head of her crib. I heard her giggle and all of a sudden she turned and with lightening speed attempted to run the length of her crib. She did great, until she tripped on her blanket and face planted against the foot board. After many minutes of soothing, I thought she would lay down and fall asleep. I was wrong. She tried the exact same trick....and ended up with the exact same outcome. *sigh*

*Snuggles in Mommy's bed was really just 30 minutes of trampoline time for Emma. She would stand up, try to walk, fall down, laugh, roll over a few times and start all over. Very fun.

At this point, Daddy tried to take over. Unfortunately, he did not have much luck. We brought her to the living room thinking, maybe she'll zone out if we're both relaxing and watching tv. All she wanted to do was run around and play. Probably around 9 tears began....and pretty much didn't stop until Kurt finally got her to sleep (or she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion) around 1130!

She was up at 3 am and again at 6 am. She looked exhausted, but didn't even take super long naps today. She was pretty fussy tonight, but enjoyed her first wagon ride and stair climbing(more about that in the next post) before passing out before 7! Here's hoping she sleeps all night and our little Emma wakes up with smiles in the morning!

We've learned our lesson...don't mess with a baby's schedule or you will pay!!