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.)

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*

Mom Question

I don't know why I was so excited when Avonlea finally rolled over from her back to her front. It has caused nothing but trouble!

Since Avonlea was born, she has never slept on her front. Not on me, and not in her crib. This is partly because I was terrified by the thought of SIDS. But mostly, it was because she couldn't turn her head all the way in either direction because of her torticollis.

We have been going to therapy for several months now, and she has full turning motion now (we're still working on her head-tilt), but still acts very uncomfortable when she has to put pressure on her neck while it's turned (which is why she doesn't fall asleep on my chest or on my shoulder).

Well, this is now a problem. Because she likes to sleep on her side, but she often rolls over on to her front, and then wakes up, frustrated because she can't sleep on her front, and has somehow forgotten how to roll back on to her back.

When I put her down for a nap, it usually takes her about 15 minutes to fall asleep, and I go in every 7-8 minutes or so--usually needing to turn her over because she is grunting and fussing about being on her tummy.

But this week, with a combination of a cold and this turning-over problem, she has been up every two hours (and one night, it was every half-hour--yeah, that night about killed me).

I am not really sure how to teach her that she can sleep on her front. I will go in sometimes, and she is so tired that she is trying to sleep on her front--but she is literally face-planting in her bed. That REALLY freaks me out.  I tried to leave her that way, but she woke herself back up 5 minutes later.  I also don't know what else I can do to help her roll from her front to her back. She has done it before (she did it at 2 months, for goodness sake), but it's like she has totally forgotten.

Any suggestions, mamas

Updated to Add:  I went in to check on her, and she had fallen asleep like this.  Maybe I spoke too soon (or too late?)?

How It's Going

A week ago, I posted that I was through with fighting with Avonlea and the swaddle. I was tired of her writhing in uncomfortability all night long, and I was through.

I am happy to say that a week later, she is done with the swaddle!  During naps, I wrap her up in a muslin blanket from the waist down, and at night I put her in a sleep sack.

I wish I could say it is great sleep all the time. But I would say she's about 50/50.

Yesterday, for instance, was golden. She took a 45 minute nap in the morning, a 3 hour nap in the afternoon, and then went to bed without a peep at 8pm. She slept 3-3.5 hour stretches overnight.

Today, however, she took a 3 hour nap at 11, and then was exhausted but would not nap in the afternoon. She then cried for an hour before finally falling asleep at 9pm.

This is what's it's been like all week. She'll have a great sleeping day, and then the next day will be terrible. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason about it. It's frustrating. I am surprised at how much harder it is to sleep-train your kid, as opposed to someone else's.

Part of her problem might be the transitioning we've done.  We not only transitioned her out of the swaddle, but last night was the first night that she slept in her own room.

She isn't in her crib yet--we actually just bought the mattress today. We moved her pack-n-play into her room last night, and put her to bed. She napped in her room today. I think we'll do another day or two with her pack-n-play in her room, and then put her bed in there for the final transition.

It was a bittersweet moment putting her to bed away from us.  Don't get me wrong: it was time. I was tired of all the car noise waking her up, or the dogs waking her up, or her waking me up every time she moved. I am glad the nightlight is out of our room, so it's not shining in my eyes anymore. I'm glad I can turn on my bedside light again and actually do a little night reading if I want. I'm glad if I get up and go to the bathroom I can turn the light on. I'm glad I can sleep with the draperies open again.

But there's a (very) little part of me that's sad that I'm not going to be able to just crawl to the end of the bed to watch her sleep, or to soothe her.  She's had her first graduation of many to come, and I am both proud and sad--a feeling I know will become all too familiar over time.

My Little Mogwai

You know the movie Gremlins, right?  Kid buys this cute little Mogwai named Gizmo, with strict instructions not to get it wet or feed it after midnight, but there's an accident and Gizmo gets hit by water and produces MORE Mogwai who trick the kid into feeding them after midnight and they turn into Gremlins that terrorize the neighborhood?

I think my kid is a Mogwai.

Let me explain:

My girl is too big for the Miracle Blanket now. She's been able to get her arms out every night over the last week (she is The Hulk, I'm telling you!). So, I went to Target yesterday and bought 2 new LARGE SwaddleMe blankets (the ones with the Velcro). At this point, we have done the regular swaddle blankets (from Aden+Anais), the SwaddleMe, the Woombie, and the Miracle Blanket.  Now we're back to the SwaddleMe.

Last night:

8:15pm - Fed right before bed, then down to sleep (went down with less than 3 minutes of fussing--our nighttime routine is great).

10:30pm - Mommy just asleep, Avonlea wakes up, fighting out of her swaddle and fussing. Tried to shush her back to sleep, but she just got more and more worked up. Fed her again, fell right to sleep.

12:30am - Avonlea wakes up with both arms out of her swaddle. Wrapped her in her swaddle again, then zipped her up in the Woombie (yes, that's TWO swaddles at once). Fed her again, went right to sleep.

3:30am - Avonlea wakes up, fighting her swaddles. Fed her for a really short amount of time before she fell asleep "on the boob".

5:30am - Avonlea has managed to get one little hand up and out of both her swaddle AND the Woombie, and is scratching the craziness out of her ear (she does this when she's mad--she has cuts inside her ear from it) and yelling at me.  Re-wrap her, change her diaper, feed and put back to sleep.

7:45am - Avonlea in and out of light sleep, fighting her swaddle...again.  She has fought so much that she has inched herself up in the pack-n-play so that her head is right up against the top. I let her fuss for a while before getting her up at 8am to eat.

Can you see why I am exhausted?  This happens EVERY. NIGHT.  My little girl who slept for a 5- or 6-hour stretch, ate, then slept 3-4 hours has disappeared, and I am left with this awful Mogwai instead.  I KNOW she doesn't need to eat this often. In fact, most of the time, she spits up after eating. But I don't know how else to shush her. It would be great if she took a paci, because she could get that suck reflex soothed. But NOOOO, my girl won't take one. So I am stuck being the paci.

If my daughter jumps into a swimming pool without my knowledge, be worried.  (Gremlins reference, for those uninformed.)

My High-Maintenance Girl

(This post is very whiny. I'm sorry. But this is where I document, and whiny is what I am today.)

I love my daughter. I really do.  But MAN she is turning out to be high-maintenance!

She can't sleep without being swaddled, but she wakes up every couple of hours, frustrated with being in a swaddle.
She can't be swaddled in a blanket, because she fights her way out of it.
She can't be swaddled in the (expensive) Woombie I bought, because she can move her arms too much.
She doesn't fit in any of the SwaddleMe blankets we have, and the one she does fit in doesn't velcro shut very well, so she pops out of it all the time--and then wakes up.
She is frustrated by the (expensive) Miracle Blanket I just bought.
Oh--and she won't fall asleep on me, which would be a sweet alternative.

She doesn't like to be put down.
She has to be facing out (like in the pic above), or up high on my chest, looking over my shoulder.
She does not like the Moby wrap.
She does not like the Ergo carrier.
She does not like the Baby Bjorn (when she is facing me).
She will only ride in a carrier if she is facing out.

She hates the car seat now. She will scream and cry if it is still. If we are holding it and moving it around, she does not cry, but as soon as we snap it into the car, the yelling starts.
The days of her 4 hour epic naps in the car seat are over. I used to be able to go somewhere and get her to fall asleep in her car seat and then bring her home and put her in her bed. Those days are no more.

She will not take a bottle. She will not take a paci.
I have tried 4 different bottles and 3 different pacis.
I try every day to get her to take a paci. Nothing.
The only way she eats anything if I am not home to breastfeed is if milk is dripped out of the bottle into her mouth. The last time I went out on a date, my sitter was able to get her an ounce that way.

She has around 30 seconds of quiet tummy time. After that, it is fussing and crying, and then screaming. I try to break it up by doing some rolling practice. The physical therapist said she needs as much tummy time as possible, because her head is flat. Lovely.

Oh--and this week, she has decided that 3 20-minute naps are completely sufficient. But while she's awake, she rubs her eyes and fusses the whole time.  One day this week, I literally tried to get her to take a nap for an hour. It was completely stupid. And then at night, she is only sleeping 3-4 hours at a time.

As a teacher, I was kind of a harda$$. I stood my ground and didn't let my kids get away with ridiculous behavior.

And yet, here I am, with a daughter who has ridiculous behavior. Some days, like today, I am just exhausted. After all, I end up handling or carrying her for most of the day, because I feel bad leaving her laying somewhere because of her flat head. Thankfully, she is now to the point where she can sit up in the Boppy or the high chair, so that gives me some free hands time.

I do not like this phase.

New Post!

It seems like there's so much to write about, I can't think of anything to write.

Bullet points seem to serve me well, even though they're not much fun to read.

The other day, I went into our room while Avonlea was sleeping (she sleeps in the pack-n-play in our room), and I just stared at her and cried.  Because with all of the craziness that we have endured, we have come out the other side in a better place. Though I know we'll have hard days (the previous entry is proof of that), I am crazy in love with my daughter.  I kiss her sweet head and snuggle her close on my shoulder (since she doesn't like snuggling on my chest), and inhale her sweet scent.  She makes me laugh with her funny faces, and I look at her in wonder when she is discovering the world for the first time.

She's still fussy a lot. It's not during a consistent time of the day, so I'm thinking it's diet-related. She is still 100% breastmilk--yay! She eats with the nipple shield, which I think is adding more air into her system, so I'm working on weaning her off it. It's hard, though, with her eating off of the shield for 2/3 of her life! Today she has eaten half of her meals off of the shield, so I think we'll get there. Also, in the last few weeks I added dairy back into my diet, but I think it's messing with her stomach. I bought some of the "Little Tummys" drops, and they seem to help, but I'm also going to go back to no dairy to see if it improves her mood.

She continues to be a great sleeper. She'll sleep 4-5 hours during the day (either 2 "shorter" naps, or 1 long nap). She'll go to bed between 9 and 10pm, get up around 3am to eat, and then get up between 7 and 8am.  She has gone as long as 7.5 hours once (and my boobs were READY for her to eat that time!), but usually she'll have a longer stretch (like, from 9:30 to 3:30), then a shorter stretch (from 4:15 to 7). But again, NO COMPLAINTS from me, as I know a lot of babies don't sleep at all.  But I remember praying that she would sleep well because I don't do well on little sleep.

Here's her evening sleep setup:

Swaddled, spit-up rag under her, covered with a quilt from Aunt Sharon (we sleep with the windows open, and it can get chilly), iPad playing white noise.

Nick's friends from high school were here last weekend. I took Avonlea with us to Rodeo Drive and the Santa Monica Pier. Here are Avonlea and I at the corner of Rodeo Drive and Dayton Way. Appropriate, right?  :)

Avonlea has become a fan of the Moby wrap. The only problem with it is that it is so THICK and HOT! I swear my body temperature has been permanently screwed up. I get so hot all the time. I think I'm going to make my own Moby wrap out of linen--I found a tutorial on Pinterest. I'd love to do a ring sling, but they are more complicated to make--and I can't afford to buy one!

Bad Day

Things have been going really well. Avonlea has been sleeping well, eating well, and fussing less. I got her new toy out a couple of days ago, and she has been fascinated with it, laying under it for 20 minutes or more without skipping a beat.

Until today.

She usually sleeps about 5-6 hours during the day. Today, she slept less than one.

She is currently in her bed, fed, washed, changed, and crying because I couldn't handle her yelling in my ear anymore.

She cried if I put her down. She cried if I picked her up. She cried while she was eating. She cried if she wasn't eating. She cried during her bath. She cried when I was changing her. She cried if I put her under her toy. She cried if I swaddled her.

I am exhausted. When Nick got home, I asked him to take her so that I could go and get something for us to eat, since I couldn't get anything done today.

I have learned that babies sleep well at night when they sleep well during the day. I'm so screwed tonight.