I was able to catch a whole two hours of sleep last night. More, if you count the umpteen 30-second intervals of sleep I garnered in-between the many "Mama" moments once my child awoke at 6. I don't really think that they count, but some people might. Yes, I didn't go to sleep until after 4:00 a.m. This is because I still wasn't asleep until almost 1:00 a.m. at which time my child awoke.
To everyone who likes to say that she is preparing me for number two, I would like to inform you that that is a big fat load of hooey. Number 2 is doing a fine time of keeping me up at night what with the kicking and the peeing and so forth.
This behavior also has nothing to do with things we are doing during the day because it doesn't matter what we do during the day. Some days she gets up, some days she doesn't, and the same daily activities can go with either one.
How long is it now that this has been going on? My brain is rather fuzzy and I am not sure. I think it is a three week plus event. Which means that I haven't slept for three weeks.
This is the same child who didn't sleep for the first year of her life; it would be nice if that were over. Apparently not. If this keeps up and the second one is like her I should be dead within weeks of giving birth. Either that or the second one won't make it because of my no-sleep induced blunders.
What exactly has been going on? Let's see. Getting her to go to bed is hit or miss. Sometimes she goes down fairly well (as in I only have to go back in once) and other times it can take hours. Last night it took an hour. I could deal with this if she was sleeping through the night. Of course she is not. Sometime between 1:00 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. she wakes up, turns the light on in her room, turns the sound machine off and exits her room in order to come and whine in ours. About? Nothing.
Once up she is either up for the day or she wants to sleep in our bed, which is not working because it is synonymous with sleeping stuck to me. I already have to deal with two people, I absolutely do not need a third. Plus, even if she sleeps like that I do not. So again, not working.
Now, if she couldn't get her door open, I would be happy to leave her to her own devices in her room. There's nothing to play with and it is rather boring in there. She could fuss and complain and so forth and eventually she'd just give up and go back to bed. Granted, it might take a few hours and perhaps cause lots of crying, but that's no skin off my back.
Before everyone gets all up in arms about that fact, please be aware that quite frankly I don't care what you think. You are not me; you do not have my child; you do not know her like I do, nor do you deal with her every day. I could go on. Suffice it to say that what works for me might not work for you, but that is why life is so grand: we are all different. And there is nothing wrong with that, a fact that I wish more people could comprehend.
Unfortunately, she can open the door. Why? Because they are not doorknobs, but handles. She just barely has to get her weight behind it and open it comes. Also, there are no locks. Believe you me, if I had that option I'd use it. The only way to keep her from opening the door is to literally stand outside of her door and hold the door shut.
Which is exactly what I did last night from 1:30 a.m. until 4:00 a.m. This is after I spent 30 minutes helping her back into her bed, doing the night-time thing again, and saying "Five Little Monkeys" about eleventy-billion times. None of that is working. It hasn't been working the whole time so I haven't a clue why I keep doing it. I'll blame the I'm -a-stupid-person induced by pregnancy.
I told her I was done saying the monkeys, we weren't reading any more books and that she had to stay in her bed. This caused much screaming and crying. I am fairly certain that for lack of another way to deal with the feelings she was opening her drawers and throwing things out of them. Either that or she would throw her animals off of her bed. Since I was holding the door shut from outside, she had to do something, right?
I finally got tired of the get up and turn everything on/off behavior, so I took the lamp out of her room and told her I had to remove it because she kept turning it on and we don't do that in the middle of the night. This meant that the next time she got out of bed she decided to press buttons on the oscillating fan that is in her room. She managed to turn it off, and then immediately freaked out about it. Once she calmed a bit I went back in and told her that if she touched the buttons again I would take the fan out.
She didn't turn off her sound machine even once after I took the lamp out because she didn't want to lose that one.
Imagine that.
Anyway, it went like that for two and a half hours. I guess she either finally accepted it or wore herself out because she finally fell asleep at 3:40 a.m. which allowed me to get in the bed and fall asleep around 4. And then she was up at 6.
What a fine night.
I am sure that tonight we'll get to find out if she's accepted the "Don't get out of bed at night" message or if she just got tired of fighting and fell asleep.
I just can't wait.
Walking around like a zombie and feeling like crap is exactly what I was hoping to do this summer.
To everyone who likes to say that she is preparing me for number two, I would like to inform you that that is a big fat load of hooey. Number 2 is doing a fine time of keeping me up at night what with the kicking and the peeing and so forth.
This behavior also has nothing to do with things we are doing during the day because it doesn't matter what we do during the day. Some days she gets up, some days she doesn't, and the same daily activities can go with either one.
How long is it now that this has been going on? My brain is rather fuzzy and I am not sure. I think it is a three week plus event. Which means that I haven't slept for three weeks.
This is the same child who didn't sleep for the first year of her life; it would be nice if that were over. Apparently not. If this keeps up and the second one is like her I should be dead within weeks of giving birth. Either that or the second one won't make it because of my no-sleep induced blunders.
What exactly has been going on? Let's see. Getting her to go to bed is hit or miss. Sometimes she goes down fairly well (as in I only have to go back in once) and other times it can take hours. Last night it took an hour. I could deal with this if she was sleeping through the night. Of course she is not. Sometime between 1:00 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. she wakes up, turns the light on in her room, turns the sound machine off and exits her room in order to come and whine in ours. About? Nothing.
Once up she is either up for the day or she wants to sleep in our bed, which is not working because it is synonymous with sleeping stuck to me. I already have to deal with two people, I absolutely do not need a third. Plus, even if she sleeps like that I do not. So again, not working.
Now, if she couldn't get her door open, I would be happy to leave her to her own devices in her room. There's nothing to play with and it is rather boring in there. She could fuss and complain and so forth and eventually she'd just give up and go back to bed. Granted, it might take a few hours and perhaps cause lots of crying, but that's no skin off my back.
Before everyone gets all up in arms about that fact, please be aware that quite frankly I don't care what you think. You are not me; you do not have my child; you do not know her like I do, nor do you deal with her every day. I could go on. Suffice it to say that what works for me might not work for you, but that is why life is so grand: we are all different. And there is nothing wrong with that, a fact that I wish more people could comprehend.
Unfortunately, she can open the door. Why? Because they are not doorknobs, but handles. She just barely has to get her weight behind it and open it comes. Also, there are no locks. Believe you me, if I had that option I'd use it. The only way to keep her from opening the door is to literally stand outside of her door and hold the door shut.
Which is exactly what I did last night from 1:30 a.m. until 4:00 a.m. This is after I spent 30 minutes helping her back into her bed, doing the night-time thing again, and saying "Five Little Monkeys" about eleventy-billion times. None of that is working. It hasn't been working the whole time so I haven't a clue why I keep doing it. I'll blame the I'm -a-stupid-person induced by pregnancy.
I told her I was done saying the monkeys, we weren't reading any more books and that she had to stay in her bed. This caused much screaming and crying. I am fairly certain that for lack of another way to deal with the feelings she was opening her drawers and throwing things out of them. Either that or she would throw her animals off of her bed. Since I was holding the door shut from outside, she had to do something, right?
I finally got tired of the get up and turn everything on/off behavior, so I took the lamp out of her room and told her I had to remove it because she kept turning it on and we don't do that in the middle of the night. This meant that the next time she got out of bed she decided to press buttons on the oscillating fan that is in her room. She managed to turn it off, and then immediately freaked out about it. Once she calmed a bit I went back in and told her that if she touched the buttons again I would take the fan out.
She didn't turn off her sound machine even once after I took the lamp out because she didn't want to lose that one.
Imagine that.
Anyway, it went like that for two and a half hours. I guess she either finally accepted it or wore herself out because she finally fell asleep at 3:40 a.m. which allowed me to get in the bed and fall asleep around 4. And then she was up at 6.
What a fine night.
I am sure that tonight we'll get to find out if she's accepted the "Don't get out of bed at night" message or if she just got tired of fighting and fell asleep.
I just can't wait.
Walking around like a zombie and feeling like crap is exactly what I was hoping to do this summer.
1 comment:
Wow. I'm not a violent person, but that would make me want to throw my child against a wall. Instead I would probably let her sleep in my bed and go sleep in hers - let daddy sleep with her. I just can't deal with sleeplessness. Even though he has the big important job that pays the bills, he's much better than me at running on little sleep - the military is good at training for that. No one has a right to judge you- you need to do whatever you need to do to not throw her against a wall. I wonder what is causing her sleep problems? Kids are so weird. Maybe you can install a hook lock on the outside of her door? Do they have those there?
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