Apology

I wanted to say I'm sorry for complaining so much lately.

I just re-read what I posted at 3:00 this morning and realized I sound like such a whiner. 

E is having a hard time, it is not her fault, and I should have more compassion for her.  Instead I find myself so angry and frustrated, especially in the middle of the night.  Of course I would never take that frustration out on E, but I feel guilty for even thinking it.  I love that little girl more than anything in this world, and I feel like a horrible person for letting myself get so frustrated with her. 

I know what you are thinking, have S help so I can get some sleep.  S does help.  He is amazing.  He gets as little or less sleep than I do, and still manages to function (and excel) at his rotations every day.  But about 80% of the time, when E wakes up at night, she wants nothing to do with S, so even if he gets up with her, I ultimately end up having to get up too.

I know she won't be little forever.  I know the teething will pass.  I am just so tired.  I haven't slept more than six consecutive hours in almost two years.  I haven't slept more than three hours at once in weeks.  It is really taking a toll on me physically and mentally, and I don't know how to make it better.

And then I feel like a complete jerk for even letting myself complain about these things.  Especially when I think of how long we waited and struggled to become parents.  When I think of the couples who would kill to have my "problems" and who would do anything to be in my tired, grouchy shoes.

So, please, accept my apology for letting this all get the best of me.  I'm sorry I've been such a downer on my blog lately.  I'm sorry for all of the negativity.

I'm going to do my best to be more positive and to focus on the good things.  Like my amazing, beautiful, healthy daughter and my loving, encouraging, supportive husband.

And coffee... Lots and lots of coffee.

I Hate Teething

Yes, you read the time stamp correctly.  I have completely given up on getting any sleep. 

After doing so well with our new sleep plan, E is now back to waking up every 30 minutes-1 hour, all night long, again. When she wakes up, she screams and refuses to even lay back down, no matter what else we try.  It has been like this for over a week now.  I am so frustrated I could cry. 

I am 99.9% sure it is teething pain that is waking her up.  She's been working on her molars (all four are erupted now, and hugely swollen).  We've been alternating giving her Tylenol and Motrin, but nothing seems to bring her any relief. 

I feel so bad for her that she is in pain, but I am SO TIRED.

Teething, Dairy, and Sleep Plan: Day 17

E has had quite an eventful 24 hours.

We've discovered a possible reason why her sleep had regressed these past few days... She's been growing FOUR molars!  We knew she had been teething, but last night discovered she has not one, but two, molars popping through!  And she has two more that are so swollen they will surely erupt any day now.  Poor girl!

Also... it seems she has been "dairy-ed" again.  Her little stomach is so upset.  I feel SO bad for her, and don't know how this could have happened again.  Since the great dairy-carrot incident, I have read every label of every food product to pass her lips.  I have a list of the names of "hidden dairy" ingredients in my phone to check against ingredient lists.  We haven't eaten in any restaurants, where she may have consumed questionable ingredients.  The only thing I can think is that she must have eaten something at the Superbowl party we went to, even though I was the only one to feed her and asked our friend (the host) about dairy in all of the food before giving her anything.  I just don't know what else I can do, short of not letting her eat anything that I haven't read the ingredients list of or personally prepared myself.  But I can't let this keep happening... Other food-allergy sufferers, how do you handle this?

On a positive note, E slept from 8:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m., uninterrupted, last night!  SIX WHOLE HOURS! Then she only woke one more time before waking up for the day around 6:00 a.m.  WHOOHOO!!!!! 

Sleep Plan: Day 13

The Sleep Plan is not working.  E is not sleeping.  No one in our family is sleeping.  And that makes us all very, very miserable.

After much discussion, S and I are changing the sleep plan and our expectations, for now.  Maybe we will try again in the future, but for now, we are abandoning the "cry it out until she falls asleep at all costs" portion of the sleep plan.  Its just not working.  She will cry for 3+ hours and still not sleep.  Or, fall asleep standing up because she won't even lay down.  She is SO stubborn.

So, we have made some slight changes to our plan:

• Strict wake-up time of 8:00 every morning. -- No change.
• First nap 2.5 hours after she wakes up. -- First nap (attempt) 60-90 minutes after she wakes up.  [Note: she has not napped in 13 days, other than last weekend when she fell asleep in the car while we were driving to visit my friend.]
• Nurse her before her nap.  Then, put her down for her nap awake and do not return for 60 minutes.  If she is still awake after 60 minutes, the "nap" is over, and we try again at her next scheduled nap time. -- No change.  
• Repeat same routine for her afternoon nap at 2:00 p.m. -- No change, although sometimes we bump it up to 1:00 p.m. if she is extremely grouchy.  But she always goes down between 1:00-2:00. p.m.  (Not that it matters, since she doesn't sleep anyway!)
• Regular bedtime routine and have her in bed by 8:00 p.m.  I will nurse her before bedtime, but we will put her down awake.  At night, we can go in to reassure her/soothe her as often as needed, but we cannot pick her up until 60 minutes pass.  After 60 minutes, we can pick her up and rock her, etc., but must put her back down awake. -- No change, however, now, after 60 minutes, we go in, physically lay her down, and soothe her to sleep (either by patting/stroking her chest, or just sitting next to her without touching until she falls asleep).  It literally only takes 2-3 minutes and is a compromise we are willing to make, in order for all of us to get some sleep.
• Only allowing her to nurse twice per night.  Since she is used to nursing all night long, I hate to just cut her off cold-turkey, so we decided to cut her back gradually.  For the first week, I will let her nurse once after midnight and once after 4:00 a.m.  Next week (assuming she is still waking multiple times...) she will only be allowed to nurse once, and only after 2:00 a.m.  Each time she nurses, she must be put back down awake.  -- No change.
• NO SLEEPING IN OUR BED NO MATTER WHAT. -- No change. 

We've been doing this plan the past several nights and it is working much better for us.  E has been sleeping from 9:00ish p.m. until 7:00ish a.m. and only waking 2-3 times, which is better than before.  Also, when she wakes up at night, she is quickly soothed back to sleep by me or S patting/stroking her chest.  Of course I wish she would sleep all night without waking, but this is still SO much better than before!  And, perhaps most importantly, she has not slept in our bed once since we started all of this.  Hooray!

So, for now, that's the new plan.  Who knows, maybe the original plan would have worked for us eventually, but we just couldn't take it any more.  We are hoping that by giving E an hour to soothe herself before intervening, she will eventually figure it out and just go to sleep on her own.  Until then, though, we are happy to step in for a few minutes if that's what she needs.  

Anyway, that's where we are at with the sleep training.  I know others might not "give up" so easily, but for now, this is working for us, and that's all I can ask for at this point.  :-)

A Positive Post

I am so tired of being exhausted and frustrated with sleep training, that I thought it was time for me to focus on some positive happenings.

Despite all of the frustrations this past week, I feel like we have made a modicum of progress in the sleep department.  E has gone from absolutely refusing to sleep in her own bed to sleeping there for up to 3 hours at a time.  Previously, she would wake up the second we tried to lay her down in it, no matter how long/how deep she had been sleeping.  It was as if she could sense we were about to lay her down in her bed, and she absolutely would not tolerate it (despite having no issue with us laying her down on our bed, the guest bed, the couch... only her bed).  Also, she has gone from hysterically screaming through hours of bedtime and nap attempts to only mildly fussing and sometimes even resting quietly by herself for 10-20 minutes at a time.

Its the small victories, right? 

Another positive thing that we have done this weekend is go visit a friend of mine and her daughter yesterday.  We were friends in high school, then as life would have it we drifted apart and didn't really talk much until our daughters were born, when we reconnected via Facebook.  Her daughter was born the day after E, and since then we have been in constant contact.  It has been really nice to reconnect with her and to have someone else who I know "in real life" who is literally going through the exact same things we are on a daily basis.

Anyway, we finally got a chance to go visit them yesterday and had a wonderful time.  I hadn't seen her in almost 10 years, and we of course had never met each other's husbands or daughters.  But we all hit it off immediately and had a great day just hanging out, watching our babies play and explore, and reminiscing about old times.  It was so much fun, we are already starting to plan our next visit! :-)

Lastly... E is 99% walking!  This morning we were playing on the floor, and she took 3-4 steps totally unassisted between me and S.  She was so proud of herself, it was like a light switch flipped and suddenly now she "gets it".  All day today she has continued to let go of whatever she is holding on to and take 3-5 steps on her own!  By the end of the week, I am sure she will be toddling all over the place.  We are so proud of her! :-)

Now, if only she could figure out this sleeping thing...

Sleep Plan: Day 5

Yesterday's sleep plan experience can be summed up in one word.  HORRIFIC.

E woke up yesterday morning at 5:45 a.m. and would not go back to bed, despite us giving her nearly an hour to fuss and try to go back to sleep.

Since she had gotten up for the day so early, I tried putting her down for her first nap around 8:00 a.m.  She was SO exhausted, but wouldn't sleep.  She was practically falling asleep in the living room around 10:00 a.m., so I tried again.  Another 60 minutes of failure to nap and and an "I-don't-want-to-go-to-sleep" poop.  She finally went to sleep when I put her down for her afternoon nap, but only after her 60 minutes had passed and I went into the room with her.  Once I was in the room, she was asleep in minutes.  (I know that is cheating, to soothe her at nap time, but she was SO TIRED and I was afraid the more overtired she got, the less chance we would have of her ever going to sleep.)  She slept for 45 minutes.

Bedtime last night took nearly two hours, and again, she fell asleep only when one of us was in the room with her.  I went to check on her, sat on our bed (again, not touching her), and she was asleep in seconds.  The rest of the night, she was awake every 1-2 hours, with varying success in getting back to sleep.  Needless to say, we are all so freaking tired today we can barely function.

I know we are still within the normal range for not having success with our sleep plan yet.  I also know that especially stubborn babies (*cough* E *cough*) can take even longer than average.  However, I am feeling extremely frustrated at this point.  I thought we were finally getting somewhere, and then last night was a major regression.  I just want this to work.  I hate doing this to E and I just want it to be over.

I know there is no easy solution, I'm just having a tough time this morning.  No doubt made worse by the fact that I have maybe had 8 total hours of sleep in the past two days. 

So, lets troubleshoot what might be going on.  E does better with us in the room, so I don't think that her being in our room is the issue.  It is also not something we are willing to change at this time.  Moving beyond that, I know we need to break this habit of E needing us in the room to fall asleep, but I don't know what else to do.  We are almost a week in, and she will not even lay down to try to sleep on her own.  She will lay there and soothe herself to sleep quickly when we are in the room, but if we leave her awake, the second we walk out the door, she stands back up and starts crying again.  On the two nights she did fall asleep on her own, it was after 2-3 hours of screaming, and she fell asleep standing up.  She WILL NOT lay down, and I don't know how to force her to, or if that is even possible.  If we could just get her to lay down on her own, I'm sure she would be asleep so much faster.  Any suggestions there?

Other than me giving her three opportunities to nap yesterday, and soothing her to sleep during a nap twice (in the past week), we have followed the sleep plan to a T.  I don't know what else to do there.  Do we completely stop soothing her or checking on her, period?  Just let her cry as long as it takes, no matter what? 

Other random notes:  We added a fleece sleep sack to the equation a few days ago, in case she was getting too cold and that was causing her to wake up at night.  She also has a fan for white noise, a dim night light, and a music box on her Pack-N-Play that she can turn on and off herself.  Oh, and she has a stuffed animal that has always been her bedtime lovey, which she does sleep with every night, also in her bed.  We also have been offering her extra snacks during the day, to make sure she has ample opportunities to eat so that she won't wake up hungry at night wanting to nurse.

Do any of you have any other thoughts?  Am I missing something?  I am in uncharted territory here, folks.

Sleep Plan: Day 4

I hope you all aren't getting bored of my sleep posts.  If so, I'm sorry.  You might want to skip this one. ;-)

Not much has changed, so I'll keep it brief and to the point.

Night #4 went about like Night #3.  E went to sleep "on her own" with me in the room after fussing (without me in the room) for about 15 minutes.  Then she woke up about an hour and a half later, and majorly fought going back to sleep.  Once we got her back down, she again only woke around 1:30 a.m. and again around 4:30 a.m.  I'll take it!

Naps are still terrible.  No news there.

Sleep Plan: Day 3

At the risk of jinxing everything, I think we might finally be making a bit of progress!

E was only awake TWICE after we went to bed last night, and both times she nursed then S soothed her back to sleep in her bed after only a few minutes!  She slept from 10:30-1:15ish, 1:30ish-4:45, and 4:45-6:30ish.  For those of you keeping score, that is two three-hour stretches... which may sound horrific to a normal person, but compared to how E has been sleeping, is amazing.  Hooray! 

As for naps yesterday, she pretty much split the difference.  Her first nap, I put her down and she got quiet after only four minutes of fussing.  She never went to sleep, but she stayed in her bed and quietly rested for over an hour.  YAY for soothing herself and resting quietly without screaming through "nap" time!

Then, she turned around and fought her second nap with everything she had.  60 solid minutes of screaming/crying/fussing.  Total nap FAIL.

Bedtime started out strong, but then crashed and burned.  Since she had skipped her second nap of the day, E was beyond ready for bed by 6:00 p.m.  We put her down and she fussed and whined (but not screaming and tantrum-ing!) on and off for about 45 minutes.  She got more upset around 7:00 p.m., so we checked her diaper to be sure she didn't pull one of her patented I-don't-want-to-go-to-sleep-poops, then laid her back down and soothed her for a few minutes.  Asleep at 7:14 p.m. Success!  Then she woke up around 8:00 p.m. and would. not. go. back. to. sleep. although she was so, so exhausted.  S and I took turns soothing her every 30 minutes or so while she fussed and cried for two and a half hours.  At 10:30 p.m., I noticed she had been quiet for several minutes and went back to check on her.  This is what I found.

Just pretend this baby is blonde and in a Pack-N-Play, not on a shelf.

Sleeping standing up, with her head on the rail of the Pack-N-Play.  For the second night in a row.  I gently laid her down and she (mercifully) stayed asleep.

I don't know why, but in that moment of seeing her like that, I felt so incredibly sad and guilty.  I'm sure I was just projecting my own emotions on the situation, but I teared up when I saw her standing there sleeping and could only think of how she must have been standing back in that room, literally for hours, waiting for her Mama and Dada who never came.  It was heartbreaking.  I'm going to cry again now just thinking about it!

Thankfully, I feel a little less guilty today due to her being in a great mood. I can tell she got some real rest last night for the first time in weeks.  She has been happy and goofy and doesn't appear to hate me, so that makes me feel much better.  :-)  I am hoping tonight is even easier!

Sleep Plan: Day 2

Day 2 of our plan didn't show much improvement.  No surprise there.

Naps yesterday were still terrible.  The first nap she screamed/fussed for the entire 60 minutes and never went to sleep.  The second nap, she cried for 60 minutes, then I went in and soothed her (without picking her up) and she almost immediately fell asleep.  (I know, her "nap" is supposed to be over after 60 minutes, but she had slept all of 6.5 of the the last 36 hours, and we had church obligations, and I could NOT take her in the state she was in.  Letting her sleep vs. keeping the schedule was the lesser of two evils.)  That nap lasted 30 minutes. 

She was a monster yesterday afternoon, throwing multiple tantrums out of sheer frustration and exhaustion.

Last night went marginally better than the first.  Bedtime at 8:00 p.m.  She cried for an entire hour when we put her down to sleep, then finally fell asleep when I went in to soothe her around 9:00 p.m.  The rest of the night, she was still awake every 1-2 hours but I stuck with keeping her in her bed and only nursing her at the scheduled times.  There was lots and lots of screaming and crying.  S went to sleep on the couch, he was so frustrated that he couldn't take it any more.  I was so exhausted that after one waking, I fell asleep with her still crying.  I honestly have no idea whether she soothed herself to sleep, or if she just continued to cry until I woke up the next time.

I really hope she figures this out soon.  We are all SO TIRED.

The Sleep Plan

Houston, we have a plan.

We have decided to try a slightly modified version of the sleep plan Nicole at The Kavanaugh Report posted awhile back.  She got the plan from a behavioral therapist when they were having trouble with her son, Henry's, sleep.  It sounds like Henry and E have a lot in common in the stubborn personality and sleep departments, so I am hoping we will have some measure of success with this plan.

We have two things we would like to ultimately accomplish with this plan:  1) cut back on E's night feedings and 2) get E to fall asleep on her own, in her Pack-N-Play, and get her to stay there all night.

Our official sleep plan looks like this: 

• Strict wake-up time of 8:00 every morning.  E can get up earlier than this if she is ready, but we will not let her sleep any later than 8:00 a.m.
• First nap 2.5 hours after she wakes up. 
• Nurse her before her nap.  Then, put her down for her nap awake and do not return for 60 minutes.  If she is still awake after 60 minutes, the "nap" is over, and we try again at her next scheduled nap time.
• Repeat same routine for her afternoon nap at 2:00 p.m.
• Regular bedtime routine and have her in bed by 8:00 p.m.  I will nurse her before bedtime, but we will put her down awake.  At night, we can go in to reassure her/soothe her as often as needed, but we cannot pick her up until 60 minutes pass.  After 60 minutes, we can pick her up and rock her, etc., but must put her back down awake.  
• Only allowing her to nurse twice per night.  Since she is used to nursing all night long, I hate to just cut her off cold-turkey, so we decided to cut her back gradually.  For the first week, I will let her nurse once after midnight and once after 4:00 a.m.  Next week (assuming she is still waking multiple times...) she will only be allowed to nurse once, and only after 2:00 a.m.  Each time she nurses, she must be put back down awake. 
• NO SLEEPING IN OUR BED NO MATTER WHAT.

In addition to what I outlined above, we will also be making a real effort to ensure E eats plenty of solid foods during the day, so that she won't be hungry/trying to make up calories by nursing during the night.  

I'm not expecting miracles with this plan, but I am hoping to at least improve on what we've got going on right now... which, as you all know, is pretty dismal.  If she will just go to sleep on her own, and only wake a few times and eventually be able to get herself back to sleep when that happens, I will consider this a great success!  Anything beyond that would be a fantastic bonus.


So, all of that said... We decided to implement this plan yesterday.  S and I are both off from work on Monday, which will give us some extra time to be tired with minimal consequences.  It will also give me until Friday to be home with E before she goes back to the babysitter, so we will have almost a full week to hopefully get into some kind of groove.

Day one of The Plan went almost exactly as I thought it would.  I rocked her to sleep for her first nap, so that we weren't starting out with her already extremely overtired.  For her second nap, we put her down at 2:15 p.m. We let her cry for 60 minutes, then went in to reassure her every 30 minutes after that.  She was awake and crying until 5:15 p.m., when I went in and patted her chest until she fell asleep.*  She slept 30 minutes.

Bedtime last night wasn't any better.  I nursed her and we put her to bed at 8:00 p.m.  She cried and fussed until 11:45 p.m. (with us checking on her periodically), when S went to check on her, and found her sleeping standing up in her Pack-N-Play.  He tried to lay her down, and she woke up, so I nursed her and patted her chest again until she fell asleep.  She was then awake at 2:00 a.m., 4:30 a.m. (nursed), and 6:30 a.m.  I am proud to say we were able to get her back to sleep in the Pack-N-Play at 2:00 and 4:30, which I consider a small victory in itself.   I tried to soothe her back to sleep for about 45 minutes once she woke up at 6:30, then gave up and decided to just get up for the day. 

She is now fussing through her 60 minutes of morning nap time.  I'm really, really hoping today goes better for us!  I know it will likely take at least 3-4 days to see any real improvement, so I'm not holding my breath.

Wish us luck!


*After hearing her scream for three hours at that nap attempt, I emailed Nicole to find out what they did after Henry failed to fall asleep after 60 minutes.  I had assumed E had to stay back there, so she didn't think she had "won" by fighting sleep for an hour, but Nicole told me that after 60 minutes they considered the nap to be over, so we modified our plan accordingly.  It sounds much more manageable to me than listening to E CIO for three hours every time she has to take a nap!

re: HELP

Thank you all for the thoughtful comments on my last post.  I meant to respond last night, but was so exhausted by the time I made it home that I crashed.  We all did, actually.  I woke up at midnight having been asleep in the recliner in the living room with E on my chest and S passed out on the couch.

Since she wasn't sleeping anyway, S and I decided to do whatever it took to get her to sleep last night so we could all start over refreshed.  S and I are currently working on a plan and then we are going to do it.  Whatever "it" ends up being.  I will keep you posted.

Also, sorry for the horrible formatting on my last post.  I wrote that from my phone and it looked fine from there, but when I finally read it on my computer all I saw was a jumbled mess.  It should be fixed now.

Thanks again for your support and suggestions on this.  I believe I have replied to everyone's comments on my last post.  If you have anything else to add, I would love to hear it!

Thanks again!

HELP

After the past few weeks, I am convinced we desperately need help with E's sleep.  I am at my wits end.

Before she got sick, she was starting to fight going back to sleep when she wakes in the middle of the night, but I could usually snuggle her or nurse her back to sleep.  Then when she was sick, she got completely out of her routine, and now she WILL NOT go back to sleep at night. She violently thrashes around, screams "NO NO NO NO!", kicks, hits, slaps, and claws us (even when just laying next to her on our bed).  Last night, she flung herself out of our bed and hit her head on the nightstand, leaving a gash on her forehead.  It is no longer safe for her to sleep in our bed.   Something has to change.

This is where we are at:

E still sleeps in our room.  We don't want to change this yet, unless absolutely necessary.

We put her down for the night drowsy but awake into her Pack N Play next to our bed.  Sometimes she goes down without a fight, other times it takes one hour or longer.  I bring her into our bed when she wakes during the night.

She will NOT go to sleep on her own if we leave the room.  We have let her CIO for 2+ hours before, with no success.  She only gets more angry and upset.  At bedtime, we usually sit next to her PNP and pat her as needed.

E sleeps at least 10 (interrupted) hours per night.

When home with me, she takes two naps per day, usually totaling 2-3 hours of nap in all.  She goes down for her naps consistently between 10:00-11:00 and 1:30-2:30.

On days when she goes to the babysitter, she has no consistent nap schedule.  Since she will not go to sleep on her own, she is at the mercy of when the babysitters kids nap so the babysitter can get her down.  I assume this is part of the problem, but don't know how to change it.

E has been nursing a lot at night.  I also suspect this is part of the problem, but am hesitant to stop cold turkey because she doesn't always eat much during the day.  I want to make sure she gets enough nutrition.

We have tried every sleep training method, even Ferber and straight CIO, with no success.  (And yes we have been consistent and tried each method for long enough we should have seen an improvement.)  We have had the most luck with The Sleep Lady's methods, but they only work for bedtime and not E's many night wakings.

We cannot spend all night fighting with E about sleep.  S is in medical school doing his rotations and frequently has 12-15 hour days.  He cannot afford to miss what little sleep he gets.

Our house is small enough, we can hear her screaming from any other room, even if we did try to just leave her somewhere else and let her CIO all night.

I think that is all relevent information. PLEASE HELP.  I am about to have a mental breakdown.

Today, We Cry It Out

The fighting at nap time, the bedtime shenanigans... I can't take it any more.

After three hours of trying to rock her to sleep last night, and 20 minutes of attempting to wrestle her into her nap just now, I have hit my limit.

I just dragged the Pack-n-Play into our bedroom and plunked E into it with her two favorite stuffed animals.  I sat by her for the first 5ish minutes then left and poured myself some wine for the fall out.

And now... we wait.

UPDATE:  She fell asleep in just under an hour.  I did go back and reassure her twice, then finally laid her down in the Pack-n-Play and laid down on the floor next to her until she fell asleep (it took >5 minutes).  She is still asleep.  *fingers crossed* things are easier the next time!

Tempting Fate

I might be inviting some bad juju by saying this, but...

E SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!

(Cue Hallelujah chorus.)

Last night, she slept from around 11:00 p.m. until 6:00-something this morning.  Without waking up.  For the first time since she was seven weeks old.

Of course, it was in our bed -- we have given up on the crib transition until we find a better strategy -- but still, there is hope yet!

Parents of the Year

S and I have decided it is time to start transitioning E to her crib instead of our bed. We had planned on her sleeping in our room until she was one-year-ish anyway, and now that she is increasingly mobile we are also worried that our bed is no longer as safe for her.

So today she was really fighting going down for her nap, like she has been for the past week, and I finally snapped and decided I couldn't take it anymore and put her in her crib by herself.

She screamed for an HOUR AND A HALF until I finally caved and went to her. (We went in to reassure her every 10-15 minutes in the meantime, of course, but holy crap.) I laid down with her on our bed and she was just shaking she was so upset. I held her close while her little body heaved next to mine, and she fell asleep in less than 30 seconds. All she wanted was her momma. HEART. BROKEN.

We have had similar battles in the past and that child will. not. cry. it. out. She just escalates. I don't know what to do, because I know I don't have it in me to let her cry for any longer than she did today.

Any suggestions for making the transition to the crib easier? I was planning to start with naps and then transition to nighttime sleeping in there once she is used to naps, but maybe we should try it the other way around?

Help.

On Cleaning and Co-Sleeping

Sorry my posting has been light this week.  I finally got motivated to do some much-needed cleaning and purging of junk around the house, and it has been keeping me quite busy these past few days.

Exhibit A:  Our "bottle cabinet", before some organization. (And yes, our bottles might share cabinet space with wine and shot glasses.  Coincidence?)

It has probably literally been a year since our house had a good deep-cleaning, because we sure haven't done one since E arrived.  And it was obvious.  Our "guest room" had really just become a huge closet where we stashed everything we didn't have a place for when visitors would come over.  E's crib and the corner of her nursery were full of clothing from various seasons that had been washed but never folded and put away.  (She sleeps with us, so no need to call CPS about the suffocation hazard of laundry in her crib!)  You get the picture.  It was BAD.

I'm happy to report that this week, I've managed to empty and re-organize the guest room; sort, fold, and put away most of the laundry from E's room; did a deep clean of our bathroom; and purged old clothes and junk from three of our closets to donate.  Oh, and did a little organization in the kitchen.  Whew!

And on an entirely different note, I just came across this co-sleeping article and wanted to share it with you all.  I absolutely loved it and felt like I could have written it myself.  Anyone who has read my blog knows about our issues with E and sleep, and co-sleeping has been the only thing to save my sanity from months and months of sleep deprivation...  Despite the judgement we get from others when we tell them E shares our bed. 

Anyway, you can read it here:  Why Co-Sleeping Works For Us, Even If It Horrifies You

I hope everyone is having a great week, and had a wonderful Halloween!  Seriously, how is it NOVEMBER already?!

Some Baby That I Used to Know...

(Apologies to Gotye.)

I'm not sure what happened to our sweet, chill, easy-going baby.  But she seems to have been body-snatched and replaced by an angsty, frustrated, tantrum-throwing pre-toddler.

These past three days have been some of the most difficult days I've had with E in a long time.  She has been SO frustrated and throwing temper tantrums over every little thing.  Her mood fluctuates wildly from perfectly calm and happy to full-blown temper tantrum several times per hour.  She starts and stops tantrums so quickly that sometimes I cannot even determine what it was that set her off.  And heaven forbid if she gets into something she shouldn't have and I take it away... complete meltdown. 

She is also refusing to nap, screaming and fighting going to sleep for an hour or more before I finally give up and just let her stay awake.  Of the few times she has finally fussed herself to sleep these past few days, she wakes up only 20-30 minutes later.  (She took two 20-minute naps yesterday.  That is only 40 minutes of napping.  For the WHOLE DAY.  She was awake practically 13 hours!)

Bed time hasn't been any better.  After weeks of going to sleep on her own, without fuss, she is now back to fighting it for an hour or more.  Last night, she cried on and off for an entire hour before finally falling asleep.  I tried everything -- leaving her to CIO (only makes her angrier!), laying with her (she hit me and pushed me away), nursing her (more hitting and pushing), and rocking her (physically fighting and kicking, trying to wrestle herself free).  Nothing worked...  Until she finally realized that she WAS actually hungry, nursed for a few minutes, and then passed out for three hours.

Oh, and she has also been refusing to nurse during the day as well.  So on top of being exhausted, she is also likely starving.  She is teething something awful (working on four new teeth!), and on the cusp of several big milestones (crawling, cruising, standing, walking), which I'm sure is also part of the problem.  Those things combined make her such a frustrated, clingy, grouchy mess that she will hardly let me put her down... lest she have another tantrum.

I'm really just rambling.  It is frustrating to deal with, but mostly I just feel sad and helpless.  I hate watching her being so frustrated and having such a hard time, but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to make it better, other than just ride it out. 

Did anyone else go through this with an almost-one-year-old?  Any suggestions?  How long did it last?  Is there anything else I can do to make this time easier for E (and S and me)?

Foiled again

So tonight, S and I had plans to spend some time "together".  We've been having a rough time in that department for quite some time now (more on that in a future post), and have really been making an effort lately to spend more time just the two of us.

Of course E had other plans.  Another night of screaming-for-an-entire-hour-when-nothing-is-wrong-instead-of-going-to-bed-on-time.

SO FRUSTRATING!


I am so over this.

Go the F*ck to Sleep

(NOTE: This is not a sponsored post or a review of the book mentioned. Just the sleep-deprived ranting of a desperate mom.)

Someone is definitely getting this book for her birthday.

These past few days have been particularly frustrating for me and S.   It seems E has forgotten how to sleep.

E has never been what I would call a "good sleeper".  She slept through the night a handful of times when she was 8-10 weeks old, and never again since.  From the time she was 3 months old until about 6 months old, she was waking up every hour every.single.night.

After months of delirium from lack of sleep, we finally caved and tried sleep training.  I cannot stand the thought of leaving her alone to cry it out (CIO), so we tried The Sleep Lady's sleep shuffle method.  After just a few nights, E was putting herself to sleep without a fight and sleeping 2-3 hours in between wakings -- we considered that great success, given her history.

Long story short, E has continued to wake 1-3 times per night since then, which has been totally manageable.  Until this week.

The combination of teething (four new teeth in three weeks -- yikes) and recovering from a cold seem to have rendered her unable to sleep.  This entire past week, she has fought going down for bedtime, and then has been waking up multiple times per night, shrieking and screaming at the top of her lungs, inconsolable, and refusing to go back to sleep.  It has been so bad, I've been taking her either to the recliner in the living room or to the guest room to sleep, so that S can get some rest (he's in medical school and doing rotations right now, and has to be at the hospital at 4:00 a.m.).  Even then, she continues to scream, and nothing I do helps.  She refuses to eat, fights me when I try to hold her or rock her, and does not improve after a diaper change.  I even took her to the doctor to rule out an ear infection, and the doctor confirmed nothing was wrong other than a stuffy nose.

Thursday night, she screamed and cried for 1.5 hours non-stop, and I got all of three hours of sleep (and actually had to work the next day, awesome).  The past two nights, it has taken over two hours of her crying and fussing, and us soothing (and failing), just to get her to fall asleep at "bedtime"... only to have her wake up an hour later and refuse to go back to sleep.  Oh, and she does the same routine at nap time, and has literally taken like three naps all weekend.  S and I are losing our damn minds. 

I am so frustrated.  I feel like such a failure when I can't get E to sleep.  Last night I was in tears.  We tried feeding her, holding her, rocking her, laying with her, singing to her, leaving her to CIO... NOTHING WORKS.  I get so angry and frustrated with her that I just give up and leave her to CIO.  Then I feel guilty for getting angry, and feel like a shitty parent for letting her cry for so long.  Especially if she is sick or in pain from teething.  But then I think she HAS to learn to sleep on her own, and then I get frustrated all over again that everything we've tried for the past 6 months seems to now be useless.  I don't know why it is so hard for her to just close her eyes and freaking go to sleep.

And now I feel guilty again for just having written that.  She is only a baby!  I shouldn't feel this way.

Sigh.  I don't really know what the point of this post is.  Just ranting, I guess. 

If anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear them.

Or just tell me I'm not a shit mom.