I may or may not have mentioned that Daisy’s sleep has gone a little awry these past 3 weeks or so. Out of nowhere she decided that she didn’t want to be put into her bed at night. All her lovely little life we have done dinner, bath, bottle, books and then bed. I have put her in her cot, done a little blow the light out ritual, turned off the light and closed the door and then that was it. Well mostly anyway.
But then…it just stopped. We tried many things and came up with me reading to her in her cot, putting her to sleep on her tummy, then turning off the light and sitting there for 2-3 mins before creeping out. It seemed better to me than listening to her scream for 45-60 mins. What was an extra 10 mins?
Well now…it seems that that is no longer good enough either. The past 2 nights I can’t get away with that. She is expecting me to stay in there longer. I have to read 2 books instead of one, she wants to chat, she wants to light back on. She wants a show.
I know you are reading this and thinking turn off the light and leave you stupid woman! The girl is playing you. I know. But when I do leave well, she cries so much and gets so worked up that she vomits. This sucks. I know it could be a phase and she will work it out and I know what I have to do…tough love and all that but that REALLY stresses me out and I hate to sit and listen to her scream and pretend that everything is A OK cause it REALLY stresses me out. And when I am really stressed out I become a bitchy, cranky woman. I don’t like myself and I know that I am not my husband’s favourite lady friend either. Man this parenting thing is hard work…but we will overcome this! She will not break me! Watch this space!
At least when she is awake she is cute.
UGH, Lady did this for a while. Actually, she goes in and out of good sleep routines. And so does Mister. Honestly, when Lady was about 18 months, we finally had to let her cry it out. But she was in a crib at the time, and she gave up on the screaming pretty quickly when she figured out we weren’t coming back in. Now that she’s older and in a bed, crying it out obviously doesn’t work because she can get out of her bed and come find us, so we end up doing whatever we can (within reason) to negotiate her staying in bed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We just give her the option of the conversation, and some nights we get nowhere and she ends up in bed with us. It’s a phase, everything is a phase. Hang in there and keep telling Daisy why she needs to stay in bed. She’ll get over it.
And you DON’T need to let her cry it out. If crying it out works (at one point it did for us), then great- but if it doesn’t, then everyone just ends up miserable!! Mister doesn’t respond well to crying it out AT ALL. So we really don’t bother with it when it comes to him. 😉