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.)

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.

No More of This!!!

Last night was my breaking point.

Avonlea was up every hour or two throughout the night, writhing and crying out in her uncomfortable cry. I tried several different swaddlings, and she was breaking out or trying to break out of everything I did.

Finally, at about 4am, I took her into the family room and stuck her in the swing where she slept for 3 hours, and I was able to get some sleep.

I can't do this anymore. So, today started the "sleep without a swaddle" training. It took her 45 minutes to fall asleep during her nap today, but then she slept for 2 hours out of the swaddle.

Tonight, she was EXHAUSTED. I put her in a sleep sack, and she fell asleep within 5 minutes. But we'll see how long she stays asleep.

Of course, I can't sleep now.

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 Mommy Question

Thanks to those of you who responded here or on Facebook about the eating/sleeping issue. It has evened out in the last week. Thankfully, Avonlea has spaced out her eating more as a result. Yay! Mommy can get more done!  Her sleeping hasn't returned to normal yet. She's only going about 3-4 hours a stretch at night. And today, she didn't nap at all. Hopefully that will get better.

I now have a new question: Were any of your babies swaddlers?  I have been swaddling Avonlea since she was 2 weeks old, which has been a life-saver for bedtime and naps. It's kind of funny--as soon as you "unlock" her arms, she wakes right up.

BUT--how do I transition her out of swaddling?  I read online to swaddle her leaving one arm out, but that hasn't seemed to help.  I also bought a different swaddle than the Swaddle Me, called the Woombie, which allows for a little more motion within the swaddle position, but she seems to wake up more and then gets really frustrated.

*sigh*  How did you swaddle mamas get your kiddos out of a swaddle?