Here's sleeping with you kid

My daughter and I have come to an agreement about sleeping arrangements. Three days ago she slept the whole night in her room. What did we do differently? We started putting them to bed together. She used to fall asleep while I was singing songs (and it would make sense that she then would have trouble falling asleep again when she wakes at night without me there singing her songs) but I now I sing my songs, give everyone goodnight kisses and I leave. There's always a little upheaval. Mommy, she's on my bed! Mommy, she's playing with stuff! Mommy, she's touching me. And I have to March them back in their room a few times. But after twenty minutes they are usually both in the room and finding a way to coexist in the dark. The other change is that instead of putting her back on her mattress after she's rolled halfway across the room, I just left her where she was on the carpet and put a blanket on her.

So I repeated the exact routine the next night, but she still woke up and walked into our room holding her pillow. When she went back to grab Julio the rat and her blanket, I put my pillow on the floor next to my bed. When she came back in I whispered, do you want to sleep on the floor next to mommy? She agreed. And that was that. In the morning she woke up and instead of coming into our bed she reached for her blanket and snuggled in more on the floor. She appears to like the floor. Last night, same story. Although she came in much closer to 5 am.(progress!) I had already put the pillow and blanket down there for her. She only needed help finding her Julio in her room. So I retrieved Julio and she got cozy on the floor. Bingo.

Tonight, I'll have her pillow and blanket ready PLUS the spare Julio. If all goes well, I won't even know she's there. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.