Losing the bed time battle

I will try to start by focusing on some of the positive! Little Miss Hailey has been sleeping through the night, in her undies, fully potty trained for quite some time now. As most of you know she potty trained really young, younger than her sister even. She followed suit to Lauren and refused diapers even at night. She would wake when she needed pee, therefore, sleep and I were not best friends for a long time. Several months ago she began sleeping all night 10 to 12 hours, staying dry and not using the potty till morning. GO HAILEY! Sleep and I got to know each other a little bit again and that was nice.

We have also been blessed with two girls that "put themselves" to sleep. It was often a hard battle but just as often it was not! We have never had them in our bed, nor have we ever slept with them (except the occasional really sick times)

Both girls have blessed us with the all to well known "I DON'T WANT TO GO TO SLEEP" times...and Hailey is in one of those now...She is not napping, she is not falling asleep well and she is not sleeping in to make up for it...and we are talking about staying awake in her room for up to THREE hours - you all know drill...

1 Cup Typical Two Year Old
1 Heaping tablespoon of lack of sleep
a dash of mommy patience running out

put them all together and what do you have? A RECIPE FOR DISASTER!

SO....i know what I am "supposed" to do

I've read all the books

I've watched Super Nanny and Nanny 911

Consulted the Dr. Phil website briefly (only to turn away in disgust)

Dug deep

Called Mom

Cried...

and yet here I sit...at 8:00 at night after at least a dozen trips back upstairs to Hailey's room - finding myself saying SHE IS WINNING. The game is on, it's the fourth quarter and the score is Hailey 12 mom 0. ARGH.

She can climb over the baby gate to leave her room - she is too young to simply say "Go back to bed" and expect that she will do so...SO SHE WINS -

The solution is out there...I think it has something to do with shutting down everything around me, sitting in front of her closed door and promptly, silently leading her back to bed over and over and over again...that will work. But I have to ask myself what if she REALLY DOES have to pee? What if she REALLY DOES have to poop...I can't have her start messing the bed now!!!

So....I can follow the "solution"...and make an exception for the potty right? Hmmm...let me count the trips to the potty. Tonight it was 4 (she did go poop by the way, for the 3rd time today) I swear she can pee and poop on demand.

Well, I suppose it worth a shot right...when all else fails - PUNT.