Well after that big post and cry-fest I felt much, much better. Kate actually slept the rest of the night pretty well. I’m still getting over this cold but I don’t feel as terrible as I did, thank goodness. I apologize in advance for this long ramble-y post, but I’m trying to work through my thoughts!<\/p>\n
I wonder how much my mood affected Kate? I really do wonder sometimes, because she tends to throw her fits when I’m out of patience and distracted and highly irritated. I don’t know how much of that is that I’m better able to calm her when I’m calm or if she’s picking up my moods. Either way it’s rough when I’m not feeling well.<\/p>\n
I’ve been thinking a lot about her sleeping habits and trying to sort it out.<\/p>\n
Well first off, no teeth have sprouted and last night she was very peaceful. Not the best sleep ever, but there was no crying jags or anything. No tylenol either. (And when she was screaming those nights and I gave her tylenol, it didn’t do anything.) So while maybe teeth were bugging her, I don’t think that’s the real issue. She’s also not showing any more signs of getting what I have (thank the light).<\/p>\n
Also, she goes<\/i> to bed perfectly when she’s tired. Nap times are golden<\/i> – she seriously has never napped this well in her life. I no longer nurse her to sleep, though she does nurse before bed and gets drowsy. Then I put her down on her belly, pat her bum a little, lay down beside her and sing her a song. She’ll often just reach out and hold my finger, fidget until she’s comfy, and she drops off asleep. (I’ve been working on getting her associated with falling asleep on her belly rather than in my arms, to help her settle herself in the middle of the night.) She’s been taking 2 naps a day, 1-2 hours each.<\/p>\n
Bedtime she falls asleep the same way, easy and peaceful. She doesn’t fight me the first time, not at all. She has a consistent bedtime, though I’ll put her down a little early if she’s rubbing her eyes and whiny. The problem happens when she wakes back up. Now the frequent wake-ups have been happening for a long time, but there’s an obvious answer: she wants me. I tend to have to go in every hour to get her back to sleep. That doesn’t bother me (much) so long as she’s tired and goes straight back to sleep.<\/i> Also the difference between before and the last week is that once I brought her to bed with me she’d sleep really well – she just wanted me. No problems. She’d wake up to nurse once or twice. Lately? Waking up throwing fits every hour.<\/p>\n
But what has been happening the last few days is that she’s woken up feeling like she’s good to go, time to play. When I try to put her back to sleep she throws an utter hissy fit at me because she doesn’t want to sleep! Explains why she’s been doing it when she’s asleep alone and<\/i> when in our bed. Two nights ago when she was screaming I told Den, I could be wrong but that doesn’t sound like pain, that sounds like rage<\/i>.<\/p>\n
We probably made it worse by letting her play one night. But I was sick as hell and had nothing left in the tank and we thought maybe letting her get out some energy would help her sleep the rest of the night. Even at the time I was laying there wondering if that was going to bite me in the ass later, but no manual came with this child and I just really didn’t care much beyond the pounding of my head that night. So she played for an hour with Den and then, yes, she slept. But alas, not the best of things to do.<\/p>\n
The best sleep nights she’s had have been when we were out, busy, active, and maybe naps were cut a little short. After a day like that she tends to crash hard and sleep much longer stretches and wake only to nurse. I’ve been sick, so we haven’t been going out at all, and I haven’t been doing anything fun or exciting (unless you count blowing your nose as exciting). So I’m thinking she’s just not tired enough. She acts tired at bedtime, rubbing her eyes and putting her head on our chest, but she’s tired enough for a “nap”, not a good 12 hour stretch. I’m going to try moving up her naps a little, making sure she does NOT take an evening nap (she dropped it and then has been falling asleep in the evening again), and that her afternoon nap is early enough. Not sure how we’re going to get through the evening, but hopefully she’ll get used to it.<\/p>\n
Also, I’m just really frustrated with people (IRL) telling me that I have<\/i> to let her cry it out. It works for some people, yes. But, firstly, they don’t know my child. She’s how would you say “spirited” – the kind that would scream for 3 hours, throw up, and keep screaming. Once she gets wound up it takes a lot of effort to get her wound down. Secondly, if I’m not sure if she’s teething or having a growth spurt or getting sick, now is not the time to start letting her cry! How terrible would it be to find out later that she has an ear infection or something. And thirdly, I reject the notion that you HAVE to let a child cry in order to teach them to sleep. Yes I understand sleep associations and she wants me there with her – but I really do believe that there is a gentler way of re-teaching those associations. It takes longer, a lot longer. It’s a lot of little baby steps. But I’m the one who’s up all night, I’m the one making that choice and commitment. She’s just so little still.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well after that big post and cry-fest I felt much, much better. Kate actually slept the rest of the night pretty well. I’m still getting over this cold but I don’t feel as terrible as I did, thank goodness. I apologize in advance for this long ramble-y post, but I’m trying to work through my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3463,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462\/revisions\/3463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}