Thursday, June 24, 2010

Going to Sleep = The End of the World!

Mama's Losin' It

I am trying something new this week. I have been having a hard time coming up with posts lately so I am trying out Writer's Workshop with Mama Kat at Mama's Losin It.

My child is stubborn. Just like me. And I hate it. I can not win when it comes to her stubbornness. For the last 3 weeks she has refused to go to bed at normal bed time. It takes anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours to get her to sleep.

She has been such a good sleeper. She started sleeping through the night on exactly her 2 month birthday. She has slept through the night every night since. We have never had a problem putting her down at night. She has always gone down fairly easy and with no sleep training at all she was able to put her self to sleep in her crib.

Even when we moved her to her crib she slept through the night. When we stopped swaddling cold turkey, she went down easily and slept through the night. When she learned to roll over in her crib she continued to sleep perfectly fine on her belly all.night.long. When she is completely out we can easily move her from car seat to crib, arms to crib, reposition her in her crib and she would never wake up.

But then 3 weeks ago she realized that if she doesn't want to go down, she can scream bloody murder and we will rock her and hold her and walk with her until she falls asleep. The first week it only took us an extra 20 minutes to get her down still awake. Then it started to get longer and longer until last week.

Last Friday we went to the zoo. She would not nap. At all. She wouldn't take her morning nap. She slept for 20 minutes in the car on the way there and then not again until we were on our way home, 20 minutes again. That was it. Wouldn't nap when we got home either. So we decided that at 6 (an hour early) we would start our bed time routine since she didn't take any naps during the day. Certainly she MUST be tired.

I laid her down knowing she would start screaming immediately. I rocked her, I paced her room with her. We tried watching tv. We even popped in a DVD of Mickey Mouse Club House, no interest. I walked up and down the street with her. Bouncing her, rocking her. Nothing. Every time we put her down she screamed. If it was just her whiny I don't want to go to sleep cry/fussiness, we would have let her go. But this was screaming with big tears soaking her face.

I looked at the hubs a little after 9pm (yup 3 hours later!) and told him we have to take her for a ride. Nothing was working. So we strapped her in and were on our way for a drive around town. She fell asleep within minutes and we were able to easily transfer her to her crib where she happily slept through the night. Saturday we ended up taking her for a drive again. The hubs didn't want a repeat of the night before so at quarter to 8 we were driving around town to get her to sleep. Again worked immediately. Sunday, Father's day, we were at my parents. I changed her into her pjs and feed her her bed time bottle before we left. So she again would fall asleep on the way home and slept through the night.

Monday wasn't bad, about an hour and she was out. Then last night. Nothing worked and I refused to drive her around to get her to sleep. I don't want her at 8 months to start to develop bad sleeping habits. At 9:30 last night she finally fell asleep laying in bed with me. I was able to easily put her into her crib and she slept through the night. Last night was by far the worse. Nothing worked and I was losing control. She cried, I cried. I felt like a horrible mommy. I couldn't do anything for her and she just refused to sleep. We couldn't even just give up and let her play until she was tired because she was already tired. If we out her down any where she would cry.

I have 2 theories of why she is refusing to sleep. The last few weeks her schedule has been all over the place. My father is no longer watching her and for the last few weeks she has been home with me a lot and the hubs was off all last week with her. This week and next week she is with a friend of ours for a few days. I am hoping that when she gets into a routine again when she starts full time at The Bug that it will get her back on her sleep schedule. I feel bad that she is so out of whack that she has no clue what is going on. Is she staying home? Going to The Bug? Going to grandpa's or somewhere else? So maybe that is throwing everything off?

And theory number 2? Teething maybe? I think I felt a bump but the hubs said no way. She isn't doing her I am in pain cry. When she is crying in the crib as soon as we pick her up she stops and is fine. And she is still sleeping through the night. So she's not waking up crying. So maybe its not teeth. I guess that the fact that I have an 8 and a half month old with no teeth I am starting to just blame everything on teething even though she has none and still don't think she is.

I am praying that getting her back on a good routine will help and she will go down easier. We have stuck with her normal schedule, she's just been all over the place and never knows where she is going to be for the day. But I am sure she loved spending all that time last week with her daddy!

This completely got off track from "what my child does that reminds me of myself". Opps, but one thing is for sure. Writer's Workshop gave me something to write about!

3 comments:

  1. Honestly, I feel your pain. My son is almost 3 and still wakes up 5 of out 7 nights! But he was always a bad sleeper. I hope that she does grow out of this stage!

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  2. I agree with both of your theories, though even before I read them, I thought Teething. Just because you can't SEE any, doesn't mean they aren't giving her problems. It could be gas....It could be growing pains....sadly, there just isn't any way to KNOW for sure. My second daughter didn't sleep through the night until she was 10 1/2 months old!! It was MISERABLE! I know its frustrating, and difficult, but keep the faith, and you will get through it! I hope she works out her schedule again soon! (and the only suggestions I would have would be bedtime music, soft, classical...a warm bath.... Whatever you choose, make sure it is something you can live with long term, cause if it works, you'll want to keep it up, and not start any habits you don't want to continue! :)

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  3. Ohhh I know that all too well! I'm definitely NO expert. But a couple of things that worked for my son...elevating the head of his crib...just a little bit, putting some books under each leg...don't ask, it worked.

    The doc said that sometimes when they are teething, even if there are no nubs, there is pain in the gums and we tried a little bit of infant tylenol and it worked. like. a. charm.

    Only other thing I could think of is a growing spurt?

    I hope it settles for you soon, I know it's frustrating, but you'll get through it!

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