Sleep Training

It has been just a little over 4 months since Bela entered our lives and up until this week getting Bela to sleep at night was a rather difficult procedure.  We had to be careful to balance the need for bonding with the need for being able to comfort herself during sleep.  So for the first 4 months, one of us would lay down with her to help her get to sleep, which was usually a long process that could last several hours with sometimes 2 to 3 shifts per night until she fell to sleep.  We wanted to make sure she felt connected to us and knew that we'd be there for her, which is all part of bonding.  By now bela now figured out that she could get out of bed, open the door, and come into our room.  While it was very cute to see her come into our room reaching out for us, we both knew that it was not the best thing for sleep training.  So we decided that each time she did that, we'd pick her up without speaking to her and just put her back in her bed, but then she'd just get up and come into our room again, and we'd put her to bed again.  That back and forth process latest about 36 rounds that night before she finally stopped getting up and fell to sleep, it was probably around 11 PM that night.  It was rough to say the least.  We both fretted over the thought that each night we'd have to go through this back and forth over and over, so for the next week after we fell into our old habit of sleeping with her till she fell to sleep.  One thing that Bela didn't really have yet was a security blanket or favorite doll that she'd like to sleep with. So we began to put her to bed with a soft purple troll doll that her cousin Nicholas given her. And a friend's wife had quilted a beautiful green and purple blanket, and we began giving both of them to her as she went to sleep. Unfortunatley, she really didn't take to either of them, but we made sure that everytime she napped and went to sleep that we'd tuck her doll in with her underneath the soft blanket.  Then just this past Monday, we went through the steps of putting her to bed (getting her into her PJs, brushing her teeth, reading a book, etc) and after tucking her under the little blanket we gave the doll a kiss good night and told her that mommy and daddy would be downstairs and that Bela would need to go to sleep, but if she needed us she would only need to yell out "Mommy" or "Daddy" and we'd right up to get her.  She nodder her head, said night night to me, and POOF, we didn't hear a peep from her until the next morning.  Wow, could it be that easy finally to get her down to sleep?  The next few nights were the same as one of us would go through the same exact process and she'd nod her head with a big smile and say "Night Night, I luv you" and we'd close the door and she would fall to sleep.  What a relief, Bela is now secure enough to comfort herself to go to sleep - a huge sign of attachment.  Where before we'd painfully pass on the nightly shifts of laying with her until she fell to sleep, we were now high fiving each other after only taking 5 minutes to get her to bed.  We now had our evenings back and we could catch up on Lost and have some mommy and daddy time.

As Fate Would Have It....

Last week Holt International, the agency that we used, sponsored a picnic for all of the adoptive families of Holt.  It was a great turn out, and as expected there were lots of children with their parents.  However, since there are only about 400 children adopted from India into the US, we didn't expect too many kids from India.  While we were sitting on the blanket relaxing after playing on the slides, we noticed a family coming over to us.  Wow, could it be another adoptive child from India?  Sure thing, we met a very nice family who had an 11 year old daughter whom they brought home about 8 years ago.  I thought it was very special that they continue to come after so many years, and we hope to do the same.  Their duagher is a very sweet girl and was very interested in meeting Bela, but Bela was more interested in playing on the slides.  For the next hour or so we shared adoption stories with the family over some delicious Korean BBQ supplied by a local church.  It turns out that their daughter was also adopted from BSSK, but back in 2002.  Just after lunch we noticed another family coming to the picnic and they too had a lovely little girl from India.  We quickly called them over and began to get acquainted, but something was so familar with their daughter we just couldn't place it, but we soon found out why.  It turns out that the family had brought home their 4 year old daughter three weeks after we did from the the same orphanage in Pune (BSSK).  Out of 1.1 Billion people in India and 25 Million orphans, of which only 400 are adopted to the US, we happen to meet someone from the exact same place we brought Bela home from.  Wow, we were floored to say the least.  We then met even another family who had adopted a little boy from India, wow we didn't expect to meet 1 let alone 3 adoptive families from India - it was very exciting.  But the excitment didn't end there.  After sharing our stories, I told the families that I'd post the videos that we took of BSSK (one of the families hadn't been to India) so that they could see where their daughter came from.  As I was going through the videos, I noticed that the little 4 year old was in our videos, a couple of times sitting right next to Bela playing.  WOW, fate sure was on our side.  We are very fortunate to have found one of Bela's playmates and we can only imagine how helpful it will be for both girls to have each other as friends as they get older and have questions about their adoption and begin coming to terms with what it means to be adopted - we couldn't be more happy for our little girl!