Stubborn
In all fairness, Natalie has been going to sleep at night really well on her own. After we say goodnight in her room, she scurries into our room and falls asleep on our bed. She’s been sleeping so deeply that when we go to bed, we’re able to transfer her back into her own bed without much trouble. Usually, she stays in her bed until 4 am or so, when she sneaks into our bed and snuggles back to sleep. Sometimes, we wake up around 6 am to find her laying in between us and neither of us have any recollection of when or how she got there. Occasionally, she crawls into our bed around 1 or 2 am, and on very, very rarely, she sleeps all the way through until 7 or so.
But then she went through a stage when she would half-heartedly try to fall asleep for about 30 seconds before appearing at the gate at the top of the stairs and demanding that one of us come rub her back or lay down with her. We would oblige, but it really didn’t help her get to sleep any faster. She would often get really fidgety or would come back to the gate again as soon as we left. After about a week of this, we started telling her (from downstairs) that she needed to go back to sleep and then ignoring her. She would stand at the gate and whine, or sometimes we’d hear her going back and forth between her bed and our bed. Eventually, there would be silence.
Tonight (well, last night by the time anyone reads this) Natalie refused to go to bed. She just sat, and sat, and sat in front of the gate until finally she passed out:
How about determined, resolute, persistent?
I seem to remember similar behavior from her father…
I don’t think “stubborn” is such a bad thing….