Making changes

[Autoemesiss]

I have two daughters, one queen size bed, one toddler bed, one twin bed, one full size mattress and one husband. lol

Currently, we have DH sleeping in queen bed, DD2 and I in the full size mattress on the floor of the girls room and DD1 in twin bed in girls room.

DD2 has slept on my arm since the day she was born. She still is... for most of the night. She even fusses in the middle of the night to switch 'sides' like she did when she was nursing (self-weaned due to lms about 9m ago). Wakes multiple times a night, whimpering until she finds my nose or ear and then slowly falls back to sleep. Even in the evening when DH and I are downstairs, she cries and whimpers awake until I make a mad dash upstairs for her to find my nose.

I need something to change. Our dream is that we put our girls down together at night and if they need us, come into our room and sleep with us. The goal is not for them to sleep by themselves through the night, we don't think its age appriopriate, but would somehow like it to change from running up the stairs to her to her coming to me/us.

How does that happen? How do I get my 2yo to come to me instead of me running to her?

I just need some hints on how to make this change. Because in writing this note, I now have had to do run upstairs to DD2 twice...its just one of those nights.

[elizaMM]

I've been thinking about this. My son usually wakes up pretty cranky so I think that would make him unlikely to take control of the situation and get up and WALK. But, I was thinking (my son is pretty pre-verbal, so maybe this is to elementary for your daughter, but) if I had a dollhouse, I would roll play it with him watching. You know, have the kid go "night-night" in their room while the mom and dad dolls are downstairs taking care of business and the kid wakes up and cries a bit and then decides to walk downstairs.... Just a thought.

Whats "lms"?

And, uh, what does she do with your ear or nose when she finds it? ;-P