Sleep anyone?

I just don't get how it is physically possible that Aimee can survive on as little sleep as she is getting.

Seriously. I don't get it. Seriously.

The child will wake up crying all night, every night - until she sneaks into our room, wedges herself between me, Greg, and sometimes Jack (if I fall asleep while nursing him). I know, I know - for those of you moms that let your baby cry it out back when they were 6 months old, this probably isn't an issue. I mean, the more tired of this scenario I get the easier it is to let Aimee fit herself to sleep.

So let me back up a little bit. Aimee has been a wretched sleeper since the day I brought her home from the hospital. She's really only content when she's sleep near another person. Which is understandable. I don't like sleeping alone. And the before she was born she was cradled in my belly for 9 months, always hearing my breathing, my heartbeat. I think it's natural for a baby to want to sleep close to his or her mother.

Well - Aimee never got over it. Ok, she has a little, because she prefers Greg to me these days. I think it's partially because he is gone at school all day, all evening. And partially because he caves (sorry b, you do) when she turns on the water works and cries for daddy. And it's really pathetic (her crying, not the caving) - she is very dramatic.

Anyway, when we were in Utah she slept in our room her entire little life. Eventually we put her crib in our room, pushed that up next to our bed and slowly got her out of our bed and into her crib. And then she was content to sleep in her toddler bed, so long as you held her hand while she fell asleep. From what I can recall, she slept ok with that situation. (Side note - she was still using a pacifier at the time. We finally lost them and I didn't want to replace them, so she had to kick the habit cold turkey, just after Thanksgiving. She had a few rough nights, but got over it rather quickly. AND she stopped asking us to hold her hand while she fell asleep. The pacifier and the hand holding thing coincided somehow, weird.) Anyway...

Well, when law school was on the horizon and the move inevitable, soon all of our stuff was shipped off (including her toddler bed/crib). Then we had her sleeping on a mat on the floor, which still was ok, until Jack was born and Greg had to leave for law school. So then it was just me, my baby a few days old, my two year old having a hard time not having her dad around. Though really, she didn't ask for him a ton when he was gone. It wasn't until we moved that she got real clingy to him. ANyway, those few weeks it was the three of us in that room, I let Aimee climb up in bed with me many a night. I did what I had to do to get some sleep, you know?

Fast forward a little bit to Florida. Here we are in our 2 bedroom (plus den) apartment. Aimee is going to have her own room! Greg's mom got her a bed, her very own Dora blanket - when that bed came we talked it up and when we put it together we oo'd and awe'd it. This was going to be the best bed ever!

Or maybe not.

Initially I battled it out with Aimee to get her to sleep in her bed. I would sit in there with her (while Greg was studying), Jack in my arms and stay until she fell asleep. This worked a few times, if the stars aligned and Jack happened to be sleepy when it was time to put Aimee to bed.

I felt a little bad for her. I did this to her. She doesn't understand why she can't sleep in our room anymore. Jack gets to sleep in there. I think I tried for a few weeks and it was making me feel absolutely insane. Eventually I let her fall asleep in my bed then moved her to a pile of pillows and blankets on the floor of our room. This has been her arrangement up until Christmas.

On my list of New Year's resolutions - I decided that I was going to get Aimee to sleep in her room, in her bed.

And it is a battle every single day. And every single night she wakes up within 1-2 hours of initially falling asleep. When we are awake either Greg or I will go in, pat her on the back, tell her to lay down and go to sleep. She's usually pretty out of it and complies. She generally falls asleep quickly and then sleeps for another hour, hour and a half and wakes up crying again. We do the same thing, she goes back to bed. Now it's time for us to go to sleep, we go to bed. At some point, (I haven't always noticed) but between midnight and 1:30 she sneaks into our room (she's been putting her shoes on and bringing several books and stuffed animals with her) and crawls into bed with us. Generally she sneaks in on Greg's side. He doesn't notice that she does this, so in our bed she stays till morning. Sometimes if Jack wakes me up to eat, I give Greg a nudge to put her back in her room or at least on the floor. We have a very old, unsupportive queen size mattress - it's bad enough as it is and it's awful with two babies in it!

I've heard that I need to lock her in her room at night. I can't do it, for a few reasons. If something is seriously wrong, I want her to have the option to come and get us. Now, I tried locking her out of our room twice now. The first time, she banged on our door crying and saying that she had pee'd the bed. Yup.

The second time (tonight, in fact) she cried and cried jiggling the door handle. I open it, she has a cup of water in her hand, which she spills right away (sending her into crying hysteria) several books, and a teddy bear. I take her potty and send her back to her room. I even lay down next to her for a minute to see if she'll calm down. She won't, not really. I pretend to sleep and she slowly sits up, watches me for a minute, then tries to sneak out of her bed! I told her to lay down, she freaks out crying again and I leave the room.

It's almost 1 am now. I think she fell back asleep 30 minutes ago. I'm camped outside her room, debating whether or not to go back to bed, to shut and lock my door again... I'm sure Jack will wake up within an hour to eat. I'm going to be a crabby beast tomorrow - I mean today. Aimee is going to be a crabby beast all day, on top of her terrible two-ness.

Again, I have to ask - how can she just keep waking up all night? I feel ready to call for Super Nanny. Anyone know someone with this problem? And hopefully a solution? (Especially the waking up every hour part) I don't know what to do. I mean, she can't do it forever, right? Right??