She’s ready, I’m not
Mommy necklaces ROCK. Kate has been scratching my face so bad while trying to fall asleep, her fingers digging at my nose and pulling on my lip. It hurt! While away I finally got frustrated enough to order one I’ve been eying from Mommy Necklaces – they’re pretty enough to wear out, but they’re strong enough for baby. And it works!! Her fingers still do drift up to my face but I can distract her with the necklace, and most of the time I don’t have to do anything at all. Sweet, sweet bliss to be able to rock my baby to sleep without me pinning her arms down and her shrieking in frustration.
It is becoming apparent to me that cosleeping is no longer working. It makes me so sad! I have no problems keeping her in our bed, but things are changing. She and I used to both sleep so well all snuggled up together, I was so tired and it certainly made sense to keep her close by. Now we are starting to sleep apart, which sounds like a good thing but is just very frustrating. Even though we have a king size bed Kate always ends up rolling into the middle of “my” half, pinning me up against my snoring husband in the middle of the bed and unable to stretch my arm out for fear of disturbing the finally-sleeping baby. Also I have realized that I am a very light, fidgety sleeper, especially when trying to fall asleep. I have always struggled with night time insomnia (except when I have a newborn, apparently) and my trying to find a comfortable position to fall asleep in is disturbing Kate. I keep waking her up, which means I have to scoot over and comfort her and get her back to sleep, and by that point I’ve lost whatever sleepiness I had. I’ve spent a lot of sleepless nights these past three weeks, staring at the wall. (And no, I can’t use my droid because that either wakes up the baby or the husband. Gah.)
And furthermore, Den getting up for work at 6am is now consistently waking her up. Every morning when his alarm goes off she squirms, I have to hold and rock her for the next hour while he’s getting ready because he’s in and out of the bedroom. He’s really quiet about it and we both used to sleep through it all without a problem, but not anymore.
With Kate now sleeping well on her own for naps it’s looking like it’s time to move her into her own room at night. We thought about the logistics of it and we just can’t see any way to get her to sleep in her crib, as putting her down almost always wakes her up. So we’re going to be putting a full-size mattress on the floor in her room so that I can lay down with her and yet she has only 5″ if she does happen to roll or crawl off. I think it hits all the necessary marks: I can go sleep in my own bed without fear of disturbing her if she’s sleeping well on her own, I can join her if she needs me, and it’s in a quiet room where no one will be going in and out.
It sounds like a good plan, I just hope it works as well in practice as it sounds in theory. We’re going to wait until this time-shift thing is sorted out before trying it, though. One thing at a time. For right now I’m working on cleaning up and baby-proofing the room, since she’s never used it before except for diaper changes.
That is exactly what worked for us with both children. Laying them down in a cold crib did not work. We did put a small gate on the door so once they could crawl, they could not leave the room. Also, put only quiet toys in a corner when she hits that stage (books and stuffed animals) and she may play quietly and let you sleep. We also left a sippy cup and even a dish of cheerios in the room by the toys and that also gave us more sleep time. Both of ours liked to wake at 5AM and hubby and I needed more sleep than that. Good luck.
This is what we did too! Only we kind of stumbled on it by accident as we were all co-sleeping on a kingsize mattress on the floor, and when it stopped working DH and I moved out into another room. It made transitioning into a “big girl” bed later on much easier I think.
Sounds like a great plan :) I wish we had the space because I would have done just that too!
It sounds like kate is growing confident and somewhat independant and I am going to admit that I envy that ;)
Im still waiting for Noelia to stop waking up to BF at night and to stop searching for me every time she squirms (she´ll be 3 on May 1st).In this case,Im ready and she´s not…Ugh :/
We moved Mini and me into the queen bed in the guest room at this point. He was always very good about not crawling in the bed, so we threw a pillow up at the edge and it would keep him in place. If he wakes up, he’ll call for us and wait until we come get him.
And just for reference, he’s recently moved back into our bed. He’s also started sleeping much longer stretches, so it’s making it easier now that we’re not having to wake up and rearrange everyone every two hours.
My experience sounds a little like Sharah’s. We went through a phase where I couldn’t stand cosleeping because J moved around so much, but now he stays facing int he right direction and mainly just wants to cuddle, and it works out okay.
Yet again, sounds just like our experience except the mattress on the floor part. Good idea btw! We did a combo of baby in crib next to me and pulling him into the bed with gradually more time in the crib until we moved his crib to his room and did it that way with gradually more time in his crib. It was rough while we transitioned, but only took about a week.