Monday, November 17, 2008

An Answered Prayer!

I am so excited to tell ya'll about this answered prayer! Heidi is asking to lay down to sleep at nighttime!
Some of you might know the issues we've had with Heidi and sleeping over the past 6-8 months or so. She has always slept in her own bed and started out great sleeping through the night at a few months old. Then at about 9 months she started waking up at night again and we thought it was because she was hungry. Well, that turned into play time and it would take well over an hour, sometimes 2 or 3 hours, to get her back asleep. Well, John and I are not very pleasant people with a lack of sleep and John was also transferring jobs and would have to start getting up even earlier. So, we had to work on getting Heidi to sleep all night again.
Well, knowing how strong willed and crafty Heidi was we decided to go cold turkey and let her "cry it out". That was very hard, but we knew she was physically fine and just wanted to play or cuddle, so we marched on. It took just a few nights and she caught on. But those were some hard nights. It is very difficult to hear your child cry and do nothing. Heidi was also projectile vomiter as a small baby , she never really spitup, it was much more violent, and when she got very upset there she went. But she never did thank goodness. In the end she would sleep like a rock and wake up so happy, like nothing ever happened. So that encouraged us and relieved us from thinking we were scarring her for life.We did have some setbacks here and there, with colds and such, but now she was back to sleeping all night.
The only thing was she still had to fall asleep taking a bottle and then we would ever so carefully lay her down and pray she wouldn't wake up and have to start all over. Then oneday she started to push the bottle away and chat awhile then fall asleep. But we had never got to the point where we could lay her down awake and her fall asleep on her own. Until last week...
Most of the time when I am sitting with Heidi in the quiet darkness I use that time for quiet prayers about each other and our needs. I remember asking so many times for God to just help us. Help us figure this out and guide us to do what is best for each other. WELL, I was in the middle of our usual routine, Heidi was snuggled up with me chugging some warm milk and I'm deep in my prayer thoughts and I hear her say in her tiny voice, "down?"
And I'm thinking, " oh, she wants down to play..." So, I tell her, " It's sleepytime, not playtime." And again she says, "down?"
Then I notice she is pointing to her bed and saying down. So I'm thinking to myself, " yeah, right. As soon as I lay you down, then the howling will begin!"
But again she points and say, "down?"
So, I leaned over and told her, " Ok, I'm gonna lay you down."
And that was that.
No crying. She went right to sleep.
WOW.
It shouldn't, but it always amazes me when God answers prayers that we don't even know how to put into words.
She has been doing this every night since. We even went out of town and she still did it! Now we are not without a few bumps. Like she might ask to lay down, then a minute later yell for you. But I sit with her a couple more minutes and she'll ask again to lay down and that's that.
Amazing!

1 comment:

Living4Him said...

We are so happy for you guys. Life, parenting inparticularly, can be so difficult but with GOD, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! We will continue to pray for good nights!

Love Your Cuzs!