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Taking Charge
Posted on | January 31, 2013 | 4 Comments
You may have noticed that I’ve been quiet on here as of the last few weeks. Why? Because I have been so friggin’ tired and so has Tim. And why have we been so tired? Because our child is being a jerk every night when 8 p.m. rolls around. I wrote a few weeks ago about how she was giving us a hard time with going to sleep at night. It hasn’t gotten any better, in fact it’s gotten worse. We turned the crib into a daybed this past weekend thinking maybe she felt confined by the crib but it didn’t seem to make a difference. Surprisingly though she stays in the bed no matter how loud she screams. I doubt that will be the story forever though. My breaking point came Sunday night though…when I slept on the fucking floor all night because she wouldn’t sleep any other way. Yep, me, seven months pregnant on the fucking floor after we had listened to her scream on and off for four hours.
Monday morning I swore it was the dawn of a new bedtime routine in our house. I promptly went out after work on Monday and purchased a plug in night light. This would resolve one of the biggest suspects of bedtime terror…fear of the dark. After dinner we did what we always do, we went upstairs, played, danced, read books, and gave her a bath. After bath, we dressed her and Tim read her two books and then put her in bed where she proceeded to cry and then scream, alternating between the most pitiful sounding “mommy” and “daddy” you have ever heard.
And it went on and on and on for almost forty-five minutes at which time I went in, sat on her bed, rubbed her back for maybe two minutes before she was completely unconscious, clearly exhausted from her crying. She slept through the night too…not a peep. Am I happy that she had to scream her head off for almost an hour? No. But did I enjoy the whole night of sleep? Yes. So we repeated the whole process the following two nights and the screaming was substantially shorter, fifteen minutes at the most. So guess who just got herself a new bedtime routine? Sophia did. And it’s making a hell of a difference. She’s only woke us up once or twice this week and she’s not even really awake. Once we get the initial bedtime under control I’d like to take the same approach to any middle of the night wake ups that don’t sound especially concerning.
We really have no one to blame but ourselves for letting the situation get so out of control. Once she was over her sickness, we should have been firm with the bedtime routine we had set up months ago but we didn’t and it led us to this sleepless catastrophe. Live and learn, right?
(The sweet fruit of our labor. Don’t worry we put a blanket on her.)
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4 Responses to “Taking Charge”
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January 31st, 2013 @ 11:09 pm
Oh you poor kids. I hate when they don’t sleep and you have to go through the “figure it out” phase. I always feel guilt that she’s been playing in her crib for 2 hours like a Russian orphan. But I don’t thinks she’ll remember. Unless she can Google. Shit. You are good parents. I hope that kid lets you sleep, before the other one gets here. I swear they are in cahoots, to ruin us.
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Jennifer Reply:
February 1st, 2013 at 9:10 pm
I don’t think anyone has described parenting guilt better than the Russian orphan analogy. I suspect she and the baby in utero have a telepathic connection and they’re plotting against us already.
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February 2nd, 2013 @ 8:23 am
I am so sorry you have to go through this! I’ve gotten lucky so far with the transition (though the first kid got 4 years in bed with us, where the second only gets mornings with me on occasion).
My youngest is the one I have some problems with, but he needs to get used to me putting him to bed again since his daddy will be gone soon enough. It’s only me he does the crying/screaming for. He goes right to sleep with my husband.
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February 3rd, 2013 @ 3:32 pm
we have been recently going through a similar hell – Phillip had the stomach flu and then his molars coming in….it was the worst time ever!! This led to the worst ever bedtime nightmare. Weeks upon weeks of blah. we are currently finally sleeping through the night again. I was super proud of myself for not going in all the time, but it still wakes you up
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