Monday April 23, 2007
I am just going to lose my mind with my baby girl. She finally does the whole bedtime routine without the hours of crying as I gently, but firmly, lay her back down while repeating the mantra “it is time to sleep…lay down…close your eyes…it is time to sleep” about 10 thousand times. We finally got over that hump. Now she goes to sleep in a reasonable amount of time after the books, the peek-a-boo, the prayers and the songs. However, about 20 minutes later, she is back up again. Then we go through a horrible cycle of getting her back to sleep, her essentially napping for 10-20 minutes, and waking up even *more* ready to get up. The worse part is that, unlike Zane, who had a specific purpose in mind when he wanted to get up (usually to play a game or something like that), she just stands at my feet and cries or dismantles something or throws stuff. When I do try and nurse her, she bites me, so I put her down, which just sets her off into a rage that makes me want to rip out my hair in frustration. She is destroying all the ‘couple time’ we so carefully carve out for ourselves and it is so dang frustrating.
Granted, in the scheme of things, she is much better than Zane was at this age. It doesn’t even compare. At this age he was a “20 hours awake, 4 hours asleep” cycle (and similar wacked out sleep issues) that just about did us in. However, the fact that it lasted until he was about 4 (and he wasn’t firmly into a nice bedtime routine until around 5) makes it really hard to just see this as a ’stage’ because experience tells me that it is a very, very long stage no matter how firm, consistent and disciplined you are.
She also seems incapable of playing by herself. Ever. Absolute polar opposite of Zane. With him, it takes self discpline on our part to seek out his attention even when you aren’t feeling sociable because he needs to be drawn out of himself and practice social skills. She, on the other hand, must have somebodys full attention at all times or she is going to make everybody around her absolutely miserable. If it was just the grown-ups, it would still be frustrating, but it really affects Zane too. My boy who doesn’t like to eat in the first place, left the table tonight, even though it was one of his favorite meals, when she started throwing food and screaming, and then screamed even louder when we took away the food from her. He wouldn’t come back to the table and I know it is because listening to her go off like that is physically painful for him. Heck, it is painful for me and I don’t live in a world of my senses being overloaded every minute like he does.
By noon I am just so touched out. I don’t want her to even be within 3 feet of me by the time early evening rolls around because she just hangs on me all.the.time. She does nothing but whine and cry for the hours preceding every nap and bedtime. She cries for a good half hour after she gets up. That means we have *maybe* 2-3 hours the entire day when she is not massively cranky, and usually some of that gets sucked up by eating.
She seems to never get “full” of interactions. Zach takes her out daily, sometimes several times a day, and it helps, but she is also starting to be really difficult when out. She can get out of ANY belt, will not sit in a grocery cart, will bite and pinch and scream and flail if she is not getting what she wants. He gets down on the floor and play with her, but within minutes she wants me. If he keeps trying to engage her, she starts whacking him on the head with books or toys. It isn’t fun.
We haven’t even hit the “terrible twos” yet.
I also know it is likely to be teething, again.
I am just so frustrated. Zane is so open to learning right now. I try and squeeze in a lesson or two or a game or something and it seems like she can not stay occupied, no matter what I do, so that I can get a little one on one time with him. I think that has more to do with wanting to get him into school than anything. A part of me would prefer to put her in daycare for a while just so I can work with Zane a little more without the constant interuption. Lets not even talk about what this is doing to my ability to keep up on laundry or unpack. If it weren’t for Zach, we would be living off of canned food and walking over trash and clutter all the time because there is only so much I can do, especially with 20 lbs of tornado attached to my ankles.
Also, if she isn’t hanging on me, she is destroying whatever Zane is trying to do. She colors over his drawings, she messes up his sand sculptures, she steals the trains/cars/playing pieces/paper he is working with. Today he got so frustrated he dumped a bucket of sand on her head when I stepped away for a moment to go to the bathroom. I totally understand why. I still had to make him come inside because he wasn’t playing nicely, but frankly, I wish I could have done it because she just won’t leave any of us alone for even a minute.
I totally get CIO now. I wish I was stupid enough to think it would help her learn to ’soothe herself’ because it would alleviate a lot of guilt. However, I know that it isn’t fair to do that to her, but I can not for the LIFE of me figure out how to redirect this and by the end of the day I am SO glad she is asleep because I know I can’t take another second of it. Is this even remotely normal? I don’t know normal. Is this ever going to get better? All the things I know about parenting indicate a “stage” is years and years long and I am not sure if I can take years of this.
I love her. I even like her most of the time. I just wish she had an “off” button so I could get some sleep and do some laundry or something. I am just amazed some days that I manage to get through it without screaming or throwing things or any number of other things I want to do because I just am on overload. I suck it up. I deal. But I am not enjoying a lot of aspects of this stage right now. I really am fighting to find the cute things right now because I know that this is *nothing* in the scheme of things. Aaaarggg!
I totally understand where you are coming from. That is the exact same thing we are dealing with with Sophia. She can play by herself for a little bit, maybe 10-15 minutes, but as soon as I start doing homework, housework, etc, she comes over to me with a ball or a toy, or this really sad “mommy hold me” look, and it seems like I can’t get anything done. With the sleeping thing, we can’t really figure anything out to do. It’s really hard to make up a bedtime “routine” because I would like for her to go down about 8-8.30, but that means she would have to go down just in time for Matt to wake her up again to come pick me up from school. We get her to go to sleep, put her in her bed, and next thing you know, she’s up screaming and yelling and crying, and it’s nothing she needs, I don’t think, she just doesn’t want to sleep. If I had any idea what would help, I would tell you. But I don’t. The thing that seems to work best for us is we have her toddler bed in the same room we’re sleeping in. For some reason, she’ll stay asleep a little longer that way. I don’t know any more than that though. Sorry, and I hope we can both get through this “stage” without losing too much hair or sanity **HUGS**
I am so sorry, this sounds incredibly stressful for all of you! I only have a few thoughts/questions here: does Zora like to look at board books by herself? Is it dark where/when she goes to sleep? I think it is so hard to not be afraid that your second child will do the challenging things the first one did but Zora may not follow Zane’s sleep habits; this may be a short term disruption. It sounds like you are on the right track if, at her age, you have helped her to learn how to fall asleep without stress and she can lay down and sleep. Hopefully, she will learn how to ease herself back to sleep before too long. Roo wakes up about 45 minutes after she first falls asleep and always cries/screams and needs a backrub or a few whispered words but will usually go back to sleep for most of the night after that.
((((hugs)))) it will get better, it WILL.
She sounds a lot like ds. I’m not sure what the solution is though.
Perhaps hiring a mommy’s helper. Sometimes little kids love big kids.
Ugh, I hear you. Boo could be the same way, but fortunately D never minded playing with her and occupying her at least long enough for me to do laundry or clean the kitchen. Plus he was in school fulltime when she was Zora’s age so she had my attention all day. It’s got to be so hard.
I think the day care/ mother’s helper ideas are good. If you could find care you are comfortable with it could be a godsend. Even if it’s two days a week for a few hours. Enough to spend some time with Zane and get some work done.
I don’t know what to tell you about the sleep. Dh and I took Boo in shifts for almost 2 years. He got her until midnight/1am, I got her after that. Some night she’d wake up every 15-30 minutes. It got better around 22 months, but she’s still not a great sleeper.
Do you have a white noise machine? Ds1’s sleep quality improved tremendously after I got one. I find that my kids are much more cranky and needy when they do not get enough sleep, which might be part of what is going on with Zora. Have you tried any homeopathics? I would recommend trying something like Calms 4 Kids, Valerian Super Calm, Chamomile Calm or Chamomilla 30x. You can also put in her symptoms at abchomeopathy.com and get some recommendations for remedies.
I’m so sorry…hugs to you. I second what the other people have asked–about the dark and stuff like that. Although some disagree, music has worked well for getting my children to fall asleep. The playing by oneself thing is harder for my older daughter than my younger one, so that may just be temperament–if you can, look at it in the sense that she may end up as CEO of a company, or a famous actress…anything that can help you get through the day.
Take care, and hang in there. I feel for you.
I’m glad some experienced moms chimed in here, I read your post last night and thought “I have no idea what would help, but MAN, that has to be hard.”
I wish I had something extra to add, but it sounds like others have some great suggestions, so I hope you can find a way to cope with the sleeping issue. Jade is much more of a people-person than the rest of us are in our house. She rarely wants to play alone, while Daniel would prefer to play alone. It’s caused a bit of conflict at times.
Okay Jennifer….this isn’t right. Maybe we need to talk. I’m home most of the time….
I wish I had some wisdom, but I’ll be thinking of you all the same