My dear Kate is wearing my patience thin. I realize she’s getting molars. I am trying to keep that in mind, I know that’s affecting her mood and her sleep patterns. But after two weeks of “molar teething” I am just getting outright frustrated by her stubborn refusal to go the fuck to sleep. She’s trying to skip her nap, which is HORRIBLE because she needs a good 3 hour nap to function. I used to take her in her bedroom and wind her down in there, but no more… I take her in the bedroom, turn off the light, and she turns into a wiggle worm – a very vocal wiggle worm – who fights with everything she has. So I’ve found what works to wind her down in the living room: music videos on my computer. I turn them on and hold her and sing to her. It takes a little bit, but if she’s tired she’ll slowly give in and relax on my shoulder. When I deem her “far enough” I can then take her into her bedroom and deposit her in her crib. She doesn’t have to be fully asleep, but it’s a very fine line… if she’s not quite drowsy enough she immediately shoots up and starts kicking and fighting when I go into her bedroom. Frustration abounds<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Right now what works is a very specific sequence: Adele’s Someone Like You<\/a>, then Dixie Chicks’ Lullabye<\/a>. I don’t think she likes those any more than anything else, but I like them so much that I would play them over and over to sing to her when I was desperate and they have thus become her triggers. I’m not complaining, even though I’m getting slightly sick of singing the same thing over and over. (It’s better than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star 10 times in a row… trust me on that.)<\/p>\n On one very desperate night I was exhausted and just DONE and I sent Den in. He had the brilliant idea to turn on our portable DVD player with Signing Time – which she is addicted<\/i> to – and was able to get her to watch quietly until she just laid down and fell asleep. Just like that. After me fighting with her for HOURS. This seemed brilliant! BRILLIANT! I got her to nap that way a few times too – again, instead of fighting with her for an hour or more. Seemed like a great idea!<\/p>\n Except…. it turned into a full-fledged addiction. She would wake up and yell because the DVD was off and she wanted it back on. I’d turn it on for nap and leave her… and find her still watching it an hour later, refusing to nap. then she started banging on her bedroom door, yelling and tantruming because she wanted me to go in and turn the DVD on for her. She’d pick up the DVD player and bring it out to me. If I said no she’d tantrum. Lots and lots of tantrums.<\/p>\n So I am DONE with the DVD player. It was a great thing in a desperate moment, but I do NOT like how this has progressed and the attitude is just not acceptable. I am not letting her watch it for hours upon hours each day, which is apparently what she wants to do. I’m done with the tantrums when I let her watch for a little bit then turn it off. So we’re just done cold-turkey. Soon she’ll forget about it and hopefully get back into better habits.<\/p>\n This sleep thing is going to be exceedingly frustrating until these molars come all the way in. (If in fact that is what the problem is… I sure hope so, because if it’s “just her age” or a phase and there is no end in sight, then I will cry. Heartily.) But somehow I will figure out other ways to get her to sleep.<\/p>\n Thankfully once she actually falls asleep she tends to sleep well. She’s been taking 2 1\/2 – 3 hour naps during the day (one day it was an astonishing 4 hours!), and at night… well she’s fighting bedtime until much later in the evening, but again she’s sleeping until 8am without an issue. Sometimes wakes up to nurse in there, but goes straight back down. (I only get pissy whens he wakes up and refuses to go back to sleep… NOT okay. But thankfully rare.) Which is actually kind of ironic, when you think it. She was always super easy to get to go to bed, but woke frequently all night long. Now I have the opposite problem!<\/p>\n Toddlers certainly keep you on your toes.<\/p>\n ::<\/p>\n Regarding the pregnancy – and it still feels all shifty to say that, like I need to look over my shoulder and whisper the word – I’ve moved from the shock and excitement stage into the nervous stage. I no longer want to tell people IRL at all yet. I continued taking pregnancy tests and they’re not really getting darker, which freaks me out after my experience with the ectopic. My pregnancy symptoms come and go and consist mostly of excessive burping and a crazy amount of bloating. The rest of the time I feel normal (except for an inability to fasten my jeans button – I always thought that was related to the IVF retrieval, but apparently no, it’s just my early pregnancy symptom). It’s so weird to know that I am pregnant but not really feel it at all.<\/p>\n I know I could phone and beg for a beta, but I really don’t have the desire to. I have a pretty fatalistic view of this pregnancy: either it will work out, or it won’t. Getting a beta won’t change that. It will, however, probably make me obsess and worry more. I found with Kate’s pregnancy that all those tests that were supposed to reassure me really only gave me more to fret over. I’d really like to do this the “normal” way this time… no numbers, no tests, no data. I do want an early ultrasound to see the heartbeat to prove there really is a baby (and that it’s in the right spot), and obviously I want to hear the heartbeat frequently after that. But that’s all. No extra ultrasounds or BPPs or NSTs. For right now there is absolutely nothing that can really tell me anything that I don’t already know. If it’s ectopic I’ll know within a week or two. If it’s going to miscarry it will happen regardless of good or bad betas.<\/p>\n I just saw an article about how a study showed that reading the ending of a book first actually increases your enjoyment of the book, presumably because you are not anxious about what happens later. If only I could read the ending of this pregnancy so I could sit back and enjoy the ride a little more. I have a feeling I’m going to be pretty reserved for a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My dear Kate is wearing my patience thin. I realize she’s getting molars. I am trying to keep that in mind, I know that’s affecting her mood and her sleep patterns. But after two weeks of “molar teething” I am just getting outright frustrated by her stubborn refusal to go the fuck to sleep. She’s […]<\/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":[566,475],"class_list":["post-3794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-baby3","tag-kate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794","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=3794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3795,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794\/revisions\/3795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}