AT WAR

 Anna loves Maggie Originally uploaded by PhylB

I know it's partly our own fault for giving in to her but Anna has still never slept through the night. On December 30th we started a controlled crying effort to change that and of course she then proceeded to fall ill and be up all night with colds and fever a few days later so it was all out of the window. She is more or less back to being ok so we recommenced battle on Saturday night. She fell asleep between 9pm and 10pm and around 3am she woke up, stood up in her cot and announced that she wouldn't mind some milk. I laid her down and said it was 'sleepy time' not 'milky time'. About 12 seconds later, she stood back up and said 'oh you bloody think so!' or the baby equivalent at least. She proceeded to stand up and shout abuse for about 2 hours, with us laying her back down under her covers about 200 times before she gave up and went to sleep. I was dreading Sunday into Monday because I didn't want her wakening the kids on a school night. Bedtime was fine but she then got up at 1am, and again from 3-15am to 6am. At first I calmly managed to lie her down at 30 second intervals but by 6am I was glad her diction wasn't yet good enough to repeat what I was saying. I don't really want to be about when she sweetly comes out with 'For fuck's sake - Anna SLEEEEEEEEP!' Poor Thomas was lying under the duvet muttering something about getting up for work in half an hour. Last night as if on a timer, she woke up at 3-16am precisely and started the whole thing all over again. This one is a stubborn little besom. By sitting next to the cot I nearly got her to sleep after just half an hour but when I dared to go under the duvet myself because I was freezing, we got another 20 minutes of her standing up and me lying her back down over and over. This time at least Charlotte was sleeping in Marcel's room so I wasn't worried about her. Thomas suggested we leave her to stand in the cold and ignore her just for 5 minutes to see if that helped. We were beginning to see even me putting her back down was giving her attention which she had decided was better than no attention. She stood shouting at us for nearly 10 minutes, then went quieter. Thomas got up and told her it was sleepy time. He held her for 2 minutes and she collapsed sound asleep till 6-30am. Are we ever going to win this battle?