The worst nights are the ones when I have trouble falling back to sleep again. One night she woke me up at 11:30 and I was still awake at 1:30 when she woke up again.
Jim and I have been trading shifts the past few nights, which means we're both total zombies but at least I'm not clinically insane ... yet.
In the meantime, good stuff has been happening. Molly is getting better at eating.
I made my first homemade baby food Thursday -- avocado pureed with water until it's really smooth -- and froze it into food cubes. I hesitated about doing avocado as her next food after rice cereal because it's kind of a bitter flavor, but she likes it! I'm so proud! Next up: sweet potato.We had a big accomplishment Wednesday, too. I left the baby with her daddy for about two hours while I went to a dentist appointment. They did great! Strangely, I didn't feel anxious or anything like that. I was just focused on not falling asleep in the dentist chair.
Molly is getting very good (and adventurous) about pulling herself up on objects. Last night we were playing on the bathroom floor waiting for the tub to fill and she pulled herself up on the tub (with my hands right behind her to catch if she fell, which she does a lot). She spotted the rubber duckies a few inches down on the tub ledge and got excited. She leaned toward them, almost falling over, then figured out to put her feet under her and take little steps to move toward them. That was a first.
Then out of nowhere, after the bath, she figured out how to walk forward with me holding her hands, not just walk backward (as she's been doing for a while). We walked all the way from her changing pad in her room, down the hall, and into the other room to see her daddy at the computer.
And of course, there's this. For the last day or two Molly has been letting her tongue hang out a lot. We don't understand it. We just laugh.
I'm sure there's other stuff, I just don't remember. My goal every day is just to focus on the baby and make sure to keep her safe. That's about all I can manage in this sleep deprived state.I got all my sleep expert books out again and cursed every one of them. We've cried it out, worked on sleep associations, put the baby down sleepy but awake, nursed extra during the day, put her down without nursing at night, and on and on.
I'm done with it. If the baby's going to wake up, she's going to wake up. I'm trying to focus more on coping strategies for the grown-ups in the household rather than trying to make the baby change. It's much less frustrating that way.
2 comments:
The sleep thing is probably a phase. Kids tend to have interrupted sleep during development bursts and it sounds like she's definitely in one of those! Also the introduction of new foods is probably causing new feeling in her insides, which may be causing sleep problems.
We had to do the CIO with both kids. We did a modified version where we went in after 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, etc. It was super hard, emotionally. Alan was much better at it than I was! I always wanted to go right in and sweep baby up for cuddles, but Alan was stronger :) Both times it took three nights before they were sleeping solid. First night was awful and then they got better (fewer wakes, less crying, etc.) Anyway, just my two cents :)
Good luck!! Sleep is overrated anyway ;)
We CIOed too, and still have to do it when things get crazy and we get off schedule. I agree with Tessa, it took about 3 days, was very hard to live but was totally worth it! With Lucy we can't go in to her at all otherwise she is way worse and it takes even longer for her to sleep. I always feel bad for the neighbors when we do this. ;)
So Molly likes to eat? Yep, she is defintely Lucy's cousin. :)
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