By: Samar, Mother of one baby girl. Yes, my daughter sleeps late, want me to be more specific? Not before 12 am! Gasp! Yes, I don’t care what you think. And she’s not even 2 years old yet! Don’t think I haven’t tried to sleep train her, because I have. God only knows how much I tried. Earlier naps, no naps, cry it out, read to her, sing to her, give her a heavy meal before bed, put Farley’s in her bedtime milk bottle, all done with no improvement. I always get asked “What do you do with her till 12 am?! Doesn’t she drive you crazy?!” yes, just like your little ones do, just later at night. You see, I work from home, so my time is kind of flexible (envious eyes I see you). After a year and a half of trying to put her to bed earlier, I gave up trying. She doesn’t want to sleep? Fine. I’ll fix my day according to her instead. Gasp again, I know I know it’s supposed to be the other way round, but fact is it isn’t. I’m a first time mother, sometimes I think maybe one of the reasons I didn’t know how to make her a daily routine is because my mother couldn’t be with me the first couple of months or so. My mother lives in another country so I don’t have that support. I had no idea how to deal with a newborn and I managed my way by myself. Even though all through pregnancy I read the books and downloaded the apps but my baby wasn’t one of those easy babies that you can robot-program like you want. I started looking at it in another positive view; because she sleeps so late at night, she wakes up late in the morning, that gives me time to wake up before her, do my job, then cook, then clean, so when she’s up I’d (almost) be done with everything. And that worked fine with me. People and other “successful” mothers used to get to me. I used to feel like such a failure because my daughter isn’t going to bed early (and she still wants me to hold her milk bottle for her, too much gasping in this article!). I used to feel powerless and less than my other mommy friends. Then I decided to simply not care what others think. As long as I’m happy, and my daughter is happy, who cares?! She gets to go out with me at night, we get to cuddle while I give her the milk bottle, my friends get to come over at night and spend time with my daughter, I’m happy and that’s all that matters. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only mother in the world who is having difficulty with sleep training her little one. I’m not the only one who postponed the sleep training because she’s sick, teething, had a bad day, too hyper or had a nightmare. And I guess this is what motherhood is about, trying your best and be proud of whatever you accomplished no matter how little it is compared to others. Now I feel happy. My daughter is happy, I work, I take care of the house, I cook for my family, I (try) to take care of myself all the while when I have no help or a maid or family in the country. After getting to this happy point, and being proud of whatever I’m doing and finally used to this daily routine, guess what happened? My daughter decided to start sleeping early. What the hell motherhood, right?