Eleanor has been an amazing sleeper since she was about 7 months old. Naps are hit or miss in length, but she goes down smiling and wakes up laughing, and you could set a bomb off in her room at night without her even rolling over.
And I'm so grateful that she waited til we got home before she completely lost her shit. But now she is just…
And it's partially the jump across two time zones, and partially the cold and hacking cough, and partially I think it's molars coming in, and partially a new and exciting fear of the dark.
Only in the last few days has she stopped crying when I put her down. She still cries when she wakes up. I used to wake up around 7:30 to the sound of her cheerfully hectoring her friends - 'FatSheep, you SIT. Mrs Roy, lay down.' - and I'd check my email and put on pants and go to the bathroom and then fetch her out.
Now she wakes up hollering between 5:45 and 6:15. I can't just leave her there to sort herself out, both because I feel badly and because Joel has been working late shifts and needs to be able to sleep in. So I put pants on in the dark and stagger in to get her, and then we go have breakfast and by the time we're done breakfast it's not even 7 and the morning stretches ahead of us, long and cranky.
I'm trying to be grateful for the small gains, like I was when she was a newborn. The first week or so home she would wake in the night, terrified and confused, and I'd forgotten how murdery that makes you feel during the day, having your night's sleep broken. So I'm grateful that part is over. Four of the last five nights she's gone to bed without crying. Twice this week she's woken up without crying, and spent half an hour leaning on the edge of her crib and staring at the door, repeating Mama open the door? Eleanor all done thleeping.
When your kids regress, or pick up stupid and hideous habits, you always think that this is the way they are now, and you panic and you try to figure out how to fix it. I've gotten her a nightlight. I double up her jammies, so she's not waking up cold. But I think mostly I just have to wake up at 6 with her, and tell her she's safe, and wait til this blows over.
6 comments:
I wish I could trade places with you! I have a one year old and he has consistently awakened every 45 minutes all night long since he was born and is up for the day at 6:00. Last night was a good night and he "only" woke up 5 times. Just count your blessings... you have a baby who sleeps through the night and many people don't have that no matter what method we try. It's just the way it is.
Oh yeah, have you read Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems? He talks about how to move the sleep window around after your child starts waking up too early. I remember one thing he said was to continue feeding breakfast at the usual time because if you start giving her breakfast earlier you are only going to reinforce her body waking up and being hungry at an earlier time. I think there was some other stuff about exposure to sunlight and what time to put her to bed. If she is waking up grumpy, then she is overtired and needs more sleep. If Ferber doesn't work out, Weisbluth has a theory that "sleep begets sleep" and an earlier bedtime means longer and later sleep.
In the meantime, try putting a stack of books and a toy or something in her crib after she goes to sleep and maybe that will buy you more time in the morning.
This too shall pass - soon there'll be a brilliantly good phase, and you'll find yourself thinking "What did I do to deserve her?"
The teens are a thousand times worse.
I think you are a wonderful wonderful mother, and your blog makes my day. Jan the bookseller in Sweden.
Reading your blog makes me happy. Eleanor is so incredibly cute and silly and wonderful and you are an amazing mother! I hope you are getting more sleep because I remember how hard it can be. Ugh.
I'm so glad you share Eleanor with us this way. xxxxx Miss you!
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