My Goodness. Sleep training, Still?

Nighttime parenting has gotta be one of the hardest things ever. Remember when I used to be a crazy lady who never slept, with an infant who cried through naptime and sought to make my life a living torment of exhaustion and near misery? Well, those days are behind us. Mostly.

Now, Leilani usually sleeps through the night. After we get her to sleep that is. She has this ability to drag out bedtime for what feels like hours. Our goal is to have Dada put her to bed and for him to go in on the semi rare occasion that she needs someone in the middle of the night. Lately, however, it has returned to that crying and screaming for Mama, for at least part of the time. Granted, we have come a HUGE way, and I really can't complain because in so many ways, Leilani is an easy baby toddler. But take these past few hours. It took over an hour to get her to sleep last night. She at last went down with Dada, so that was a win. But then she woke up at 4:30. Like she did on Tuesday. I think she must have a timer that she operates on because she seems to have a pretty consistent 2-3 hour stretch that she likes to wake up for. We had a month or so where she woke up, and went back to sleep on her own and it was bliss, let me tell you. But now, she knows that we will come in if she cries hard enough, and that we will stay with her till she is so unconscious, she doesn't know that we are putting her in bed.

So we return to the age old dilemma of, "Ok, so should she cry about it? How long should she cry for? Do we go in initially or just let her cry herself back to sleep? How long should we hold her for when we do go in?" And all those lovely questions that groggy minds have pondered for years.

Thankfully, these nights do not usually cause near panic attacks/ tears in Mama anymore. I can go to sleep in under 30 minutes once we get her down, instead of sitting there for a tense, anxious 3 hours begging sleep to come. I can sit with her far more patiently and give her much more grace than I could in my green months of early nighttime parenting.

But where does love stop picking up at every whimper for as long as she feels like waking up and start teaching her that night time is for sleeping? One day, I know I will miss having a baby/ toddler to visit with in the middle of the night, and I am so thankful that I have her now. But gosh, sleep training? Still?