to three hours before Jada had been in the habit of getting roused out
of bed during our vacation. Despite that, she was all smiles and wide
eyes during most of the plane ride. By the time we got home (courtesy
of Amy's parents), it was 6ish, and after a nice, hot dinner (again,
courtesy of Amy's parents), we put Jada to bed around 7ish, her usual
bedtime. And after a long, cramped day, she was out before she'd
finished her bottle of warm milk. This is what I was hoping for: that
the grueling nature of our travel day would help her fall asleep and
stay asleep until the next morning, right back on East Coast time.
Well, the travel did help her fall asleep. But she didn't stay
asleep. An hour later, she was up as if waking up from her afternoon
nap: ready for hours of playtime, one more meal, and one more warm
bottle of milk before bed. But by now it was 8ish, and Amy and I
didn't have the time or the energy to simulate such an agenda. So we
did what we thought was the right thing to do in that situation. We
did nothing.
8ish became 9ish and Jada cried pretty much the whole time, a little
more distressing to us than usual since it had been months since Jada
had cried at night. But we convinced each other that anything we did
would get her further and not closer to falling asleep, so we just had
to let her cry it out.
After an hour of crying, Jada stopped, not to fall asleep but to
gurgle to herself as she played with her stuffed animals and books.
Probably an hour after that, she fell asleep. And she slept until
morning. As mentioned above, it pained us a little to hear her cry,
but it was nice to be able to unpack, sift through two weeks of mail,
and get cracking on adoption paperwork that evening before we turned
in, and to run, do chores, and work on church stuff the next morning
before we had to get her up. Best of all, it beat the alternative of
her getting further away from adjusting back to East Coast time.
No comments:
Post a Comment