I love my little girl with all my heart, and wouldn’t wish my life to be any different, but MAN, can that kid wears me out!
She’s been a little fussy lately. Some days she just does not want to entertain herself at all and those are the days that I get absolutely nothing done and feel completely worthless. I can’t walk more than 2 feet away from her without her screaming.
Other days she’s perfectly happy playing with her toys for 15-30 mins at a time by herself. She’s getting better about letting us read her books. She’ll actually sit and listen for a while and she’ll get her little right pointer finger out to touch everything. And if I point to things, she’ll also point to them.
She might be starting to sign a little bit, but we’re not sure. Last night she was doing the sign for “milk” quite a bit, especially when she saw the bottle. She also puts her hands in the air when she’s done eating (sign for all done) and sometimes she’ll clap her hands when she’s eating if she wants more (which is close to the sign “more”).
The only problem is, you guessed it, SLEEP! The kid does NOT want to sleep. Ever. I know she’s tired because she rubbing her eyes and yawning, but if I nurse her she’s constantly trying to sit up and look around and then lay back down and does that at LEAST 13 times a minute. So I try to just go lay her down and she will scream bloody murder for a good half hour at LEAST before she finally exhausts herself and falls asleep. It doesn’t help the situation at all now that she can sit up on her own. I just don’t know how to get her to go to sleep without all the screaming. During her morning nap today, she was doing her usual tired signals, but I kept her up playing for another 10 mins just to be sure. I tried to nurse her before I put her down, which she wanted nothing to do with that. So I put her in bed and she sat up and screamed for 15 mins. So I got her again and tried to nurse her again, but she was too distracted. So I fed her a 2 oz bottle, and she drank that no problem and looked all droopy eyed. Put her in bed again and she screamed for another 20 mins before she finally fell asleep. Afternoon nap, she just got done screaming for almost 30 mins. Last night it took Mark and I a good 2.5 hours to get her to go to sleep. I know she has separation anxiety issues, but I don’t know what to do besides keep her with me 24/7 and that’s obviously not going to be good for her either.
I HATE listening to her scream. I know quite a few kid-less people say that listening to babies cry doesn’t bother them at all, but it’s different when it’s YOUR baby that’s crying and you know that all she wants is you. I was frantically looking through the book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” during her morning nap scream session, trying to find the magic cure, but alas, there was not a chapter on how to get your kid to stop screaming EVERY time you put them in their crib. It just said that you have to let them cry sometimes to teach them how to self-soothe and that there was no research that proved it was going to affect her later in life because she’d think I wasn’t there for her all the time. I know it’s not emotionally hurting HER to let her cry, but it’s hurting ME. I just wish she’d make this easier for both of us. Ugh.
1 comment:
Hug to you, Monica. I know how hard it is. Sierra took a lot of naps in a carrier around that age because I didn't figure it was good for either one of us to just let her cry endlessly. It's not like I was teaching her to "self-soothe" (whatever) ... she was just crying until she was too tired to cry anymore. Less stress for both of us if I just wore her and she slept in a mei tai. I know you have tons to do, though, getting ready to move, so your situation is a little different. If you need her away and napping, then that's what you've got to do for your situation. If not, well, just put her on your back and when she falls asleep, pull the hood up and go on with your business.
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