Grr....Arrgh

I have been trying to put Aria to sleep for the last hour and a half. She has been crying off and on that whole time.

See this girl?

She no longer exists.

She has been replaced with a she-wolf who acts like she needs no sleep yet cries like a banshee when she doesn't get it.

She has literally changed her sleep behaviors 180 degrees since she was 0-3 months old.

0-3 Months

• Would sleep anywhere--on my chest, in our bed, on the floor, on a chair, in her swing, in her rocker--except her car seat, where she would scream.
• Took 34 naps a day (or, more accurately, was awake a total of 3 hours a day).
• Did not need any special blankets/swaddles/sound machines/pacifiers
• Slept 5-7 hour stretches at night
• Could be laid down and fall asleep without any interventions

Currently (almost 6 months)

• Only sleeps in her car seat.
• Wants to take 3 naps a day, but will only really take one--maybe two if I'm lucky. Depending on car rides for extra naps.
• It's sleep machine plus sleep sack or no sleep. Really only wants to sleep in our bed, but we've been working on moving her to the crib. It isn't going well.
• Sleeping 2.5-3 hour stretches at night
• If she falls asleep with the pacifier in, God help us if it falls out.
• Averaging a 35 minute go-to-sleep intervention, involving nursing, rocking, shushing, crying it out (completely ineffective), laying in our bed, laying in her bed, pacifier, no pacifier, tag-teaming with Dad, tagging back to Mom, falling asleep and then putting her down and having her wake up to have to do it all over again.

I seriously HATE this. After the 1.25 hour mark tonight, I just said "goodnight" to the screaming baby, closed the door and had to leave. I was SO PISSED OFF.  Just &(^^@(*ing sleep already, kid. You're pissing me off.  Nick went in and got her to sleep finally. (Thank you, husband!)

THIS is why I don't want any more kids. THIS is why I cried big bucket tears when we found out we were having another one. I didn't want to have to go through this AGAIN. Yes, babies are cute and snuggly and have squishy cheeks and pinchable thighs, but the incessant sleep training/loss/nonexistence is enough to make a woman go crazy. I need this kid to go to bed at 7pm. If she doesn't, then that's just more time in the day where she is latched on to me. And I completely love my kids, but if I don't get a good, solid 2 hours away from them before I go to bed, I become a bad mom.

(Edited to add: her first tooth pushed through yesterday, and it is a full moon--which might explain the last two nights--but not the three weeks prior to this.)

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 6

Avonlea has stayed with a friend and her 3 kids while I play early softball games.  This last week, as we were leaving, she says,  "Mom, that was such a good time."

Bait and Switch

Sadly, this post has been a few weeks coming. I wish things would show signs of changing course, but it doesn't appear to be headed anywhere else.

Aria pulled a bait and switch on me. 

She spent the first three months of her life sleeping peacefully anywhere and everywhere she had the chance. She slept so much I actually thought something might be wrong with her. But no, she was just an amazing sleeper.

She hit three months, and the sleeping overnight started to get messed up. She started to have swaddle problems.

She hit four months, and she went down to three naps a day, and decided that she wanted to sleep on her side (but couldn't stay in that position on her own).

She hit five months, and decided she no longer wanted to sleep in her own bed, but in ours.

Now at five and a half months, she decides that going to sleep is going to be a battle every. Single. Time. Not only that, but she sleeps so fitfully that she wakes herself up constantly.

I thought I had a baby that was going to be amazing at sleep!  Nope. Bait and switch.

She still needs a lot of sleep. She is REALLY cranky when she gets tired.  But she will no longer go down easily. It takes me feeding her laying down, plus staying with her holding the pacifier in her mouth for her to sleep. And then, she will still sometimes wake up every 45 minutes (even though she isn't ready to wake up) and I will have to come back in and roll her onto her side and stick the pacifier back in because she can't soothe herself.

Avonlea was awful for the first several months, but at least I could put her in her own bed and she would get herself to sleep relatively easy. She would scoot and travel around the bed, but never really wake up. Once she woke up, she was actually ready to wake up. Aria is NOT this way. She needs constant coaxing to get to sleep, and then if she rolls over at all she wakes up angry and needs more coddling to get back to sleep.

I know you're not supposed to compare your kids to each other, but it's hard not to in this case, when one is doing so terribly, and you have fond memories of the other.

Someone told me that it is really helpful to do your best to get your kids napping at the same time. And thankfully, this actually works really well for us. Aria usually goes down for a second nap at noon, I fix Avonlea's lunch and she goes down between 12:30 and 1. Aria sleeps for about 3 hours, Avonlea is down for 3 or 4 hours.

The problem is that Aria has no idea how to soothe herself--because I am constantly trying to keep her from crying out during naptime because Avonlea is sleeping, too! Since Avonlea takes such a long nap, you can imagine how ROTTEN she is if she doesn't get a nap. Aria cries and wakes Avonlea up, so I am doing whatever I can to make sure that doesn't happen. I kind of wonder if all second babies are like this--terrible at self-soothing because moms don't want them to cry and wake up the older kid.

I would like to do a little bit of cry it out, but there just isn't a good time to do it. We are in a 2-bedroom house, and the bedrooms are so close together. I wish there was an upstairs, or some separation between the rooms or something so I could work more with sleep training Aria without messing up Avonlea.

*sigh*

Quick Post

I haven't written in a while. When wrangling a 2 year old and a 5 month old, my down time becomes do-as-much-as-I-can time, or more recently, do-as-little-as-possible time.

Aria is 5.5 months old now. Craziness! I don't know if it's because she's the 2nd, or if I'm just slower this time around, but I really feel like she's such a baby still. And then she'll go and do something that reminds me that she isn't a baby, she's growing up and learning and doing new things all the time. I mean, I can't get it in my head that she can start trying solid foods soon. Like, what?? I'm ready for that, but also so not.

She's firmly planted in our bed now. I haven't tried her in the pack-and-play for almost a week. Why? She just squirms and cries all night if I do, and I would like some SLEEP, thankyouverymuch.  I'm hoping it's a temporary arrangement. Nick and I have talked about getting the mattress for the crib we got off Craigslist to see if she'll sleep in it any better than she sleeps in our bed. It isn't too big of a deal right now, but she is getting bigger, and her feet are in the middle of my back all night long, which is a drag. I NEVER thought I would co-sleep, but these days, I do what I've gotta do to get some sleep. When she was in her pack-and-play, she was squirming and whining every 20-30 minutes. Ain't nobody got time for that nonsense!

Avonlea is awesome. She's funny and smart, and playful and expressive. She's mimicking everything we say, which makes us have to be a little more careful--not that we say too many bad phrases or anything, but when a toddler says "Aaaw, shoot!" sometimes it doesn't really sound the same, and we get strange looks in the store.

Sunni and I took the girls to the beach a few weeks ago. Aria loved laying on a blanket in the sand. Avonlea wasn't a big fan of the sand or the ocean, but she got used to it after a half hour or so, and spent the rest of the day building things in the sand with Sunni.

I'm so glad I get to spend every day with these beauties. I didn't do anything to deserve them, but I'll keep them.