I have heard a lot of people talk about the fact that when you have kids you become abnormally obsessed with their poop and love to talk about it with anyone who will listen.

Actually, not so much for me. My obsession is with Emma’s sleep. I think about it, worry over it, dream about it and talk to everyone about it as if it is the most important thing IN THE WORLD. Last week I went into a 20 minute description of Emma’s sleep issues with an unsuspecting but very nice mother at the park. Oddly, as I write this, I realize I haven’t blogged about it too much. Lucky you.

For the last two months, Emma has gone from being a model sleeper to my worst nightmare. She used to go into her crib drowsy, look at us as we said goodnight and left the room, and then roll over and go to sleep without a peep. We rejoiced, we high fived, we secretly thought we were the best parents in the world.

On the day she turned 15 months, she decided to make it very clear who is the boss when it comes to her sleep. Only once in the last two months has she gone to sleep without crying. Sometimes it is a quick, whimpering cry - those are happy times. Other times it takes us two hours to get her to sleep - those are the why-did-we-decide-to-have-kids-we-obviously-are-the-worst-parents EVAH times. We aren’t really sure what happened to cause her hatred of sleep. There have been a string of events that might be behind it - vaccinations, teething, sickness, travel, weaning from the nighttime bottle (which is uh, not going so well. Please don’t tell our ped…I plan on lying about it when we see him in a month.) If anyone knows about a 15 month old “screw this sleeping thing” phase that kids go through, I am all ears.

But maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Just now, not 20 minutes ago, my old Emma came back to visit. I put her down for a nap, she watched me leave, and rolled over and went to sleep. Aaaaahhhhh.

No doubt she will bring me back down to earth tonight - bedtime seems to be worse than naps for some reason - but I can always hope that the stage has finally come to an end.

And also, if anyone has any tips about weaning off a bottle at bedtime, please let me know. We have been able to switch her from the bottle to a sippy cup with milk at bedtime - but really isn’t that just cheating? Still milk, still the sucking action. I am torn about whether to go cold turkey on the sippy cup or whether to just go a little more slowly and trust that she will wean herself when she is ready. In the past we have leaned more towards trusting that she will do what she needs to do when she is ready, and it has worked, but I don’t want to set my kid up for future therapy centered around dependence issues just because I didn’t know how to take the bottle away. Which is not to say I am under any illusion that she will not already be in therapy for something else I have done to her…