Nightime Struggles

We've been home for a full week now and we are still experiencing struggles with Greyson at nighttime. It seems like every time things get better, they get worse. After my last post, "Break Through", I thought we were making progress. The very next night, had a big cry out at bed time, asking to snuggle and sleep with us again. We tried Gong Gong's method of having me sleep on the floor in the room with him, but it made things worse. Greyson just screamed, "Sleep with Mama, sleep with Mama PLEASE!!!" He wanted to be on the floor next to me. I finally had to leave the room, and Roque was the one who slept with him that night. The following two nights, Greyson woke up two hours after put down, lay awake in bed for four hours, but never called for us or cried. If we didn't have a video monitor, we would have thought he had slept through the night. I was thrilled, it seemed like we were on our way back to normal. Then last night, another big cry out at bed time. Again, the begging for snuggles, and it ended with him wanting us to leave his room door open. He fell back asleep, and Roque closed it when he did, but he woke up crying again in two hours asking for me. He said, "Snuggle Mama, chair?"

It's a combination of jet lag and breaking all the sleep rules while we were on vacation. Yesterday it coincided with my first day back at work, so I think that was what all the clinginess at bedtime was about (talk about Mommy guilt.) It is exhausting for Roque and I and we miss our great nighttime sleeper. As much as I loved snuggling and sleeping with Greyson while we were gone, I'm not sure if the "re-training" is worth it. I wish it didn't have to be an "either...or". I wish kids could deal with sleeping their parents some days and not others. I wish we could have the best of both the worlds of co-sleeping and sleep-training. I wish things with toddlers didn't have to be so black and white.