Sleep at last! Well, kind of...

We've been home now over 2 weeks and our little guy is still waking up at all hours whining and crying. We met with the pediatrician last week and she gave us a bunch of articles on sleep training and reminded us that we need to train him, not the other way around. She cautioned us against creating a habit that we don't want to stick with. She also reassured us that all kids have sleep issues at some point in thier lives, so we are not alone. She suggested trying to let Noah "cry it out" to see if he can settle himself down, so last night we gave it a try and boy oh boy does that little guy have persistence! He went to sleep at 9:30pm like usual and happily tucked into his own bed with his books, stuffed mouse and sippy cup of water. He also has a picture of us on the wall right next to his bed so he can look at it if he gets scared (a clever suggestion from an adoption counselor). Right on schedule he woke up at 11:30pm and started crying and whining. Peter went to check on him and took him to the bathroom since that is the normal routine. He then put him back to bed, sat with him a while and then told him that it was "time to sleep", showed him that we would be right outside the door on the couch, and shut the door. Well, the screaming commenced and continued to get louder and more irrate as time went on. We have a camera monitor in his room, so we turned it on to watch his shenanigans and to make sure he was really okay. After 10 minutes of screaming he got out of his bed and stood by the door screaming and banging on the door. It was really hard to watch, but we thought we'd try really hard to be patient and wait it out. Every once in a while he would stop and listen to make sure we were still there and listen to see if we would relent and come over. After 30 minutes without ceasing, we went in to tell him again that it was "time for bed" and that he needed to lay down and go to sleep and that mommy and daddy are right outside and that everything is "okay". We put him back in his bed and he cozied in again... looking rather perterbed, but okay and not scared. Peter sat with him for a few minutes and then walked out and shut the door with the light slightly on. Well, after about 5 minutes, Noah got back out of bed, turned the light all the way on in his room and proceeded to scream at the door again. Again, he would scream and then stop to listen and then start again.... The funny thing was that by looking at the monitor we could see that he wasn't actually crying, just screaming and then stopping and very calmly waiting and listening. At some point he got his books from his bed and brought them all to the door... then he got his water and carried that to the door too. I don't know if he was packing up to leave or what?! By about 12:50am he finally went back to his bed got under his covers, rearranged all of his "stuff" and laid down to go to sleep. By 1:15am he was out and slept the whole night as far as we could tell, without waking or crying. We had the monitor by our bed (which Peter finally slept in for the first time since we've been home) and checked it every once in a while and he was sound asleep. :)
Writing a whole post about Noah's night adventures might seem silly, but for us this was a major victory! We are so sleep deprived we can hardly see straight and Peter has been falling asleep every time he sits down, so we have been desperately waiting for something to change.... We are hoping that after this little experience Noah will have "gotten the picture" and realize that he needs to sleep in his own bed and that he doesn't need to wake up at all hours to whine. The last few nights that Peter was sleeping on the floor, he would wake up, look at Peter and then if he saw any movement start whining. If Peter sat totally still he would just go back to sleep.... Hopefully tonight won't be worse as a result of our experiment and things will continue to get better instead. This little guy is much more clever than we first thought! We are hoping that all his stubborn persistence will mean some sort of greatness when he gets older :)