I can’t offer much great parenting advice, but there is one bit that I always find myself chanting when I am bleary eyed and trying to get a kid to sleep: “At some point, no matter what, this kid will go to sleep.”
That’s the only thing I know to be true. Sure, sometimes that sleep may mean you only sleep for an hour or two before work, but — at some point — that kid will sleep.
It’s not much comfort when you’ve been at it for so long that your legs and back ache. It’s not much comfort when you do the math to see how much sleep you’ve lost, or won’t get.
But.
At some point, they always go asleep.
This, I know.
Our first daughter had to be rocked to sleep for hours. Our second has weeks where she needs to be rocked for a while. A few weeks ago my youngest was up every one to two hours over the course of the night. And I rocked her to sleep from 2am to 4:30am, only to get up at 6am. I slept for a total of three hours in two chunks that night.
And I was pissed. Maybe you’re not supposed to be pissed at your kid, but I was. However, at some point they always go to sleep.
And she did, but it just happened to be at 4:30 in the fucking morning.