Bedtime battles

Gracie is nocturnal. I swear it. She's a night owl just like me. It's gotten to the point where I just dread 8:00 (that's "bedtime" around here). It's like the witching hour & I'm kind of at a loss what to do about it anymore. I battle with both of them to get to sleep. I can't leave them alone (they share a room now) because they sit & play or continually run out of the room....especially Grace. Emma will eventually fall asleep, I'd say around 8:30 or so. Not so with Grace. Last night was particularly fun, I think she finally settled down & fell asleep just before 10:00. Now, I HONESTLY wouldn't mind her staying up so late IF she slept in! You'd think if she was staying up until 10:00 that maybe, since she's TWO, she'd sleep in until say 9:00? I'd even be happy with 8:00. But no, she was up at 7:00. That's only nine hours of sleep for a two year old. Add an hour daytime nap in there & she's still only getting ten hours of sleep. Yes, some nights it's more, some naps are longer but honestly I just don't think she gets enough sleep. The thing that really is frustrating to me is that I feel like I "waste" my whole evening trying to get them to sleep. I really look forward to some quiet time, ME time. So I end up staying up until midnight just to have a couple hours of peace & quiet. My only hope at this point is that she'll grow out of it like Emma has. BUT...it's still a no win situation for me. Once Gracie is asleep, she almost never wakes up until morning. Emma still wakes up at night, once or twice, and comes & gets me up. I can probably count on one hand how many full nights of sleep I've had since before Emma was born. Coray thinks I'm crazy for even considering the possibility of having another child. His continual comment to me is something along the lines of "do you ever want to sleep again"? Too funny. Still, I would really like to find some technique(s) for settling Grace down at night. I have to say I find most of those baby books overrated. At least nothing so far has worked....crying it out, routines, baths, stories, songs, snuggles, reasoning (HA!). If they ever develop Ambien for kids I'm so there. Now before this whole post starts becoming too whiny or completely sounds "poor me" I have to mention something I spoke about in a talk I gave in church last November. I'm going to quote myself directly from my talk here: "And as frustrating as it can sometimes be, as tired as I sometimes am the next morning as I drag myself to the computer to start working, I wouldn’t trade the guarantee of one solid eight hour night of sleep for all of my nights of broken sleep for anything in the world. Because they’re only little once and they’re growing so fast. I know the day will come, much sooner than I think, that they won’t need Mommy at night anymore. Someday, the rolls will be reversed I think, and it will be me reaching out to them, though maybe not in the middle of the night."

So there you have it. Bedtime & sleeping...it's definitely a love/hate relationship for me. I know it won't always be this way but I'm definitely looking forward to the end of the bedtime battles!