Well, not sleepless, but pretty crappy sleep.
Some nights are great! Until a two weekends ago, the Pumpkin had been sleeping through the night in her own bed by herself probably 5 out of 7 nights. Most nights over the last month or more, the Pookie has sleep a big chunk (like 3-4 hours) at the beginning of the night and then woken every 2 hours or so. The nights when both kids are sleeping at their best, Londo and I get decent sleep. I wake up feeling better good and like I can handle the day.
Then we have nights like the last two nights, and the three nights prior to Saturday night (Saturday night was actually a good night). These are the nights when the Pookie wakes up every. freaking. hour. and kicks and squirms and nurses the rest of the time and/or (usually and) the Pumpkin comes into our bed with a book she wants Daddy to read (okay, that's kind of cute) and tosses and turns on us, between us and into us.
I so grumpy today. I'm so very very tired. I went to bed at 9:00 just hoping to get a chunk of sleep when the baby first went to bed, but he woke up at 10:15 and was not restful the whole night, including waking up every hour. The Pumpkin was in bed with us since midnight or earlier and was very grumpy herself this morning. And the Pookie was fussing just enough to keep me from being able to finish getting ready for the morning. Londo stayed home sick this morning, so he helped me out a great deal.
Did I mention we've all been sick and were finally feeling better but now not so much?
Plus, fall is now here and I haven't started doing anything to treat my Seasonal Affective Disorder. Ugh. I'm just happy to be back at work where I deal with very few people who act like babies and toddlers.
5 comments:
Are you actually indulging her when she comes in wanting you to wake up and read a book to her? She's old enough to understand mommy and daddy have needs to and while she can lay quietly with you, she needs to let you sleep or she's going back to her own bed. We've had to enforce this with Maggie, who also wakes up in the middle of the night thinking it's party time. Sacrificing your own sleep to indulge a request like that isn't doing anyone any good. If I have misunderstood and that's just her pretext for climbing into bed with you, nevermind.
@AmyinMotown - Normally, she just climbs into bed with us and goes back to sleep. She's always had problems sleeping/going back to sleep on her own, and this usually works out fine. Lately, she's been bringing a stuffed animal/a book/her blanket/whatever comes across her path with her when she comes. It usually involves nothing more than my husband saying that he sees what she has and to come lie down with him. Only twice has she actually asked him (so hopeful-sounding) to read a book, both were short books, and after he read it/said the basic words because it was too dark to read, she curled up to him and went to sleep. Much easier than her have a half hour toddler meltdown in the middle of the night (we've had those before, too).
So good points about enforcing going back to bed. We do need to be better about that. But we just don't have the energy right now.
Also, we plan to work on her bedtimes and trying to get her to go to sleep on her own. We just haven't started working very hard on it because she's been through so many changes lately. I'd love to hear anyone's suggestions, though, keeping in mind that we will not be doing any form of CIO, even at her current age.
CIO wouldn't work with a 2.5 y.o simply cos they know you will cave in eventually and go for broke. 2.5 y.os are so headstrong, trying to test your limits especially at bed time. Mine does it on and off. There are times she'll go to bed without a peep other times she will try every technique up her sleeve to stall. And this also has happened in the middle of the night too. Water/10 kisses/kiss babies too/clean snot/more water/tuck blanket the list is endless. I had some success with not engaging her when she woke up in the middle of the night. I mean, not speaking to her, just handing her over the water ( it was summer and hot)or cleaning the snot, or tucking the blanket and then walking out of the room. This did result in some crying though, but it was not what you'd call CIO. It worked after 2 days ( nap and sleep time). She still wakes up at night, but she'll get herself back to sleep and no more stalling ( which sounds like what your daughter might be pulling).
Unfortunately 2.5 is a mega transition stage and you might have problems for a while yet so would it work actually putting her down for the night in your bed? I know this is what friends have done ( they also have a 3 month old too) as this is the only way their big girl (just turned 3 )will sleep.
How funny that you posted this today. I'm feeling the same thing. I laid awake last night for 3.5 hours with a cold, and the exhaustion and grumpies have set in early on. Here's hoping that we both feel better and get some rest soon.
I'm learning more and more that you can't let your child control you. Children need limits. They thrive on limits.
We have a very stubborn girl and as soon as she starts to control us, things get chaotic. One example is hand washing. We were kind of lax about hand washing when we helped her use the bathroom...she never actually touched anything so we'd just wash our own hands. Well since we didn't make her do it every time (which was the easy way out when we were in a rush or we didn’t want to deal with her attitude), it turned into a battle when she REALLY needed to wash her hands (especially now that she can get herself up on the seat and she's wiping herself). Basically, I put my foot down and no matter what, she's washing her hands. I tried to approach it in the most loving way I know and she now knows there is NO other option. She took to it pretty well with only a little resistance at first. But I set a limit and she knows there is ABSOLUTELY no other choice. She's starting to wash hands on her own without any prompting.
That was obviously a small example...but it's how I like to work. I identify a problem and I stick to a resolution no matter how painful it will be for myself because I KNOW it's the best thing for my child. And usually after a couple days, weeks or even a month, that problem isn’t an issue anymore and it’s worth it. I've approached sleep the same way for both my children too. Very easily we could have sleep issues as well. We’ve worked hard to prevent problems, but changes happen and when things start to get bad, I read, find a solution I am willing to try and I just stick it out. I’ve already mentioned both my approaches I did for Aria and Emmett. Basically it comes down being consistant.
I hope when you do decide to work on your daughter, it goes well and you stick to it no matter what. I read somewhere that it takes 3 days to create a bad habit and 10 days to fix it. Best of luck and I hope there are more restful nights in your future.
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