These past few weeks have been so rough for me. I cannot shake this cold I have had for close to 3 weeks. It started to get worse last Friday. It is a combination of the dry air too because when I sleep in my daughter’s room, the cool mist humidifier is a great relief.
Speaking of Sydney, we have been having quite the battle with getting her to sleep for the night – full on wailing in the middle of the night, wakings 2-3x a night. A lot of things come to play of course:
- Getting her own room just 2 months ago
- Battling being scared of the dark
- Night terrors
- Weaning from breastfeeding last month
- Me being pregnant and cranky
- My time being split up with a new venture
One of my favorite sleeping positions was her sleeping on my chest and we can’t do that of course with me being pregnant. And I am not the most naturally compassionate person, ask my husband. I think I hid behind my boobs to be honest. It was easy to be sensitive to my daughter’s needs because nursing was an in.cre.di.ble soother. I didn’t have to say much either.
Nowadays it is hard for me to come up with the words that my daughter needs from me. It makes me feel like a terrible parent. Lacking sleep while pregnant does not help at all.
It really could be too much change for her. We brought her back to our bed tonight so at least we can all get some sleep again.
I read some other parent’s bedtime routine on parenting.stackexchange.com was not having songs because it was too stimulating. So I took it out of our bedtime routine a few days ago. But I forgot that my own child finds songs soothing.
When I heard my mom singing to her, it reminded me that she loves music during the day and night. It also reminded me to take tips with a grain of salt.
Thanks to my mom for being the surrogate pillow for her and calming her down for me by singing to her.
Lola the surrogate pillow
I’m amazed I spent so many years of my life not giving any thought to my sleep patterns or that of other human beings. Humans should talk about it all the time so they’re better prepared for raising children. I’ll skip all the cliched sayings about this too shall pass because you just need sleep. Sending you all the sleep vibes I got. And, be gentle on yourself. She just weaned which means your body is still going through a transition as well – hormones and all that jazz are recalibrating which can manifest in many, many ways plus you’re preggo which is doing this whole other thing to your body. Just be easy on yourself, mama =) So excited to read your posts!
Thank you Carla for the encouraging words! It can really feel like an island sometimes, this parenting bit. I used to survive (work 9-11 hours, go to the gym, and get take-out – I rarely cooked on the weekdays) on 5 hours of sleep. It is a whole new ball game now. Your blog posts are very inspirational. Thank you for writing them 🙂
Rhea,
I still don’t get much sleep. It’s just that part of parenting they don’t speak of. But sending you great vibes and some down time for sleep for the both of you. Sleeping is important to overall health. Transitions aren’t any easy on kids especially when they had a great rhythm. Have you tried books? If music soothes her, put a timer on a player ? Maybe recreating the bedtime routine and seeing what works and soothes and calms her down. Melatonin? Lavender? And as for outside advice, always with a grain of salt. If I had listened to all the advice I was given, I wouldn’t be doing half of what I succeeded in. Do what works and feels right for you family.
I like reading an article that can make men and women think. Also, thank you for allowing for me to comment!