Praise Odin, our daughter slept through the night

We are incredibly lucky that Annalise has always been an amazing sleeper. As early as two months old, she was regularly sleeping seven hours per night. I don’t think we can credit our superior parenting; she’s just that kind of kid, though we also give some credit to the SNOO smart bassinet. On a typical night, we put her in bed in her room at 7:30. She plays a little in her room by herself, turns out her own light, turns on her white noise maker, and climbs into bed, where she’ll stay until 7:20 the next morning. Yes, this is a brag.

Jet lag is an tough problem for even a great sleeper, though. The time difference is 6 hours, it always looks like daytime because the sun doesn’t go down, and she doesn’t understand time zones. So, it’s tough to convince her of the new bedtime. Below, we’ve journaled our experience.

Night 1

We put Annalise to bed at her normal time: 7:30. Her video monitor has broken in transit. She does not fall asleep until 4 am. We are up and down with her and can attest that it never gets dark in Trondheim in the early summer. With all her free time, and without us being able to watch on the monitor, she learns how to open the childproof lock on her closet. We had hauled this lock all the way from Annapolis, where we had used it to both secure her closet and flummox full-grown adults with terminal degrees as a party trick (it has a particularly devious “decoy button”). Due to the lack of a monitor, we only figure this out when we can’t find Happy Lee within the small room; it turns out she had unlocked the closet, taken out her backpack, put Happy Lee into the backpack, stashed the backpack back into the closet, and relocked the child proofing.

Night 2

Neither the Clas Ohlson at the mall nor the Barnas Hus at the other mall sell a video monitor. There is no Amazon in Norway. She does not fall asleep until 1.

Night 3

We turn our attention to another problem: how to keep her in her room. She knows how to open our front door in Annapolis and has left the house without supervision; that especially can’t happen here when it’s -25 degrees, so she needs to stay in her room. We improvise a solution using a pretty decrepit suitcase with a splintered wheel.

Night 4

By hanging her whole body weight from the handle, she can sometimes get out of the room despite the suitcase. We add a coffee table.

Night 5

We have a conundrum: she sleeps well at nap time, sometimes 3 hours or more. We need this time to nap as well — but will a shorter nap help her sleep at night? Can we bring ourselves to get up and wake this child? We cannot. She goes to sleep at midnight.

Night 6

Night 7

We spend the day at Norway’s largest indoor waterpark. She goes down the seven-and-under waterslide approximately 30 times and braves the wave pool in her new lifejacket. She is totally exhausted, but not enough to go to sleep at a reasonable time. She falls asleep at 11:30.

Night 8

In a second attempt to wear her out, we spend the day at Leo’s Lekeland, a giant indoor playground. She is exhausted, but does not sleep.

Night 9

We have deployed the nuclear option occasionally used with great success in Annapolis: we unscrewed her light bulbs, leaving her unable to turn on her lights to look at books and play. We have no more cards to play. Will we finally succeed? Will this be the end?

Night 10

Annalise has learned how to turn on her radiator.

Night 11

We all wake up exhausted, and at Annalise’s request, stay inside the apartment all day. We are concerned that the lack of stimulation will prevent sleep later, but it seems to be right what she needed. She went to sleep at 7:30 and slept 13 hours!

Let’s hope this lasts!