please give me strength

As I type this, I am listening to my precious daughter scream bloody murder. "MAMA!! MAMA!!! MMMAAAAAMMMMMAAAA!!!!" over and over and over again. My heart is literally breaking.

Let me back up a bit. We've been having trouble with Emerson waking during the night and then thinking that it's playtime when Jeff or I go in there to settle her back to sleep. Last weekend, she was up from 4-6am (in fact she never went back to sleep) on Sat/Sunday night and then from 10pm -3am on Sun/Monday night. Bedtimes and nap times have been getting tougher and tougher as she's fighting them tooth and nail and we've finally put our foot down. We're reclaiming control. And our plan is the cold turkey method. We aren't going in AT ALL once we put her down, no matter how awful she sounds and no matter how long she screams. I'm not entirely sure that this is the best method as Jeff and I both HATE it, but I don't know of any alternatives, so this is where we stand.

This effing sucks, let me tell you. To hear my sweet girl screaming for me over and over is physically excruciating. I wanted to throw up yesterday afternoon. I was crying, she was crying, Jeff was pissed. Awesome. He went for a walk in the blustery cold this afternoon instead of staying here and listening to her wail. The only thing that is comforting me is that the wailing seems to be getting shorter and shorter. Yesterday's nap was epic...we went in a few times (just made things worse when we left again) and then she wailed for an hour after the last time I was in there. Bedtime last night was a cinch...she was so tired from a. getting up at 5am and b. exhausting herself at nap time, so she only cried for 12 minutes. Today's nap took 35 minutes to get settled in. Right now, we're at 18 minutes and counting, but she's mellowing a bit. She launched her binky (she's NEVER slept without it!) about 2 minutes into her crying fit, and I want to go give it to her, but I know that she'll soon figure out that tossing the bink is a surefire way to get us in there. Crap.

I'm hoping that this retraining works quick and that peace can soon be restored to our home.

Ugh. Parenting is hard. {I know those of you with teenagers are laughing at that one, but this is where we're at right now!}