I gotta say - this was a hard week. On Mon and Tues, Emily was SOOO hard. She wouldn't sleep for more than 40 min each nap session. But because I knew she was tired from her lack of sleep, I would keep on trying to put her back to sleep. Unfortunately, after 20 min of hard rocking, she would sleep for 10 min, and then I'd start all over again, just for another 10 min of sleep. It was so bad. I was so mad at her. I wanted to do nothing but throw her in crib and be like FINE! YOU SLEEP YOURSELF! It was pretty bad. My anger had reached a ceiling. I was so mad at her that I decided that it was time to sleep train her. I wasn't going to continue this ridiculously exhausting pattern bc my legs, feet, and back were killing me. Even Sy was surprised by my change in tune.
Last week was the 4th of July, so we went to sleep over Sy's cousin's house in NJ. I was still pretty furious with Emily when we got to their house, and Sy's sister laughed as she was proud that I had finally reached a breaking point bc she had been advocating sleep training for a while, but I was too soft to do it.
On a side note- Emily hates car rides. She cries and cries and that's why we try not to take her anywhere too far. But it was an hour and 20 min car ride for her. And me, still being angry with her, was fine to let her cry in the car. In some ways, I had wanted her to cry just so I could feel some vengeance for the past 2 days. (Man, I was so angry with her)
Emily slept relatively fine that night, but because we were all sharing a room, when Sy and I crept into the room at 2am, we woke her up and had to rock her back to sleep. That led to her not getting good sleep, and she woke up at 5am, in which we had to rock her back to sleep, and then woke up again and again until about 6:30am. She finally slept from 6:30am - 7:30am. Sy and I were exhausted.
On a highlight - we got to take Emily into a pool for the first time! Sy's sister had gotten matching rash guards for Emily and her cousin, so they were super adorable in their matching shirts and hats. And we were so proud of Emily for not crying in the pool! She seemed totally fine with it! What a relief! I was afraid she'd be a fearful baby and not want to go in, but I'm glad she's a brave one. She was so curious about everything.
Back to Emily's sleep - she again slept only 40 min at a time, and was so cranky from being tired. By the time we got home, she was so exhausted and fell asleep pretty quickly. But unfortunately, the fireworks were so loud, they woke her up and she woke up several times that night.
We did our best to give her a good day of rest on Thurs and Friday so she could fix her sleep pattern, but it didn't really work. On Friday, we had to get a passport for Emily, so she missed another nap, and therefore didn't get to sleep as well as we would've hoped.
On Sat, Emily suddenly started sleeping great, and slept super long all morning. We had plans to go meet friends at a beer garden that afternoon, and wondered if we should just stay in since she was finally getting some sleep. But selfishly, we decided to go. It ended up being super loud there and Emily couldn't fall asleep and got really cranky. After an hour and half, I decided to just take her home and sleep her there. She ended up sleeping another hour and I was so happy for her.
Then Sy's friends decided to come over to our house and leave the babies with me and one other girl. And that turned out to be the biggest mistake ever. There were 2 toddlers in our house + Emily. This was a bad combination bc we were outnumbered. When I tried to put Emily down for bed around 8pm, she kept waking up to the other 2 toddlers yelling and to the loud bang sounds she heard. I ended up putting Emily down after 40 min straight of rocking. Then, she woke up again and again bc the toddlers would cry and she would wake up freaked out, or hear loud bang sounds and wake up again. I bet she was scared bc she would be in this dark room, hear a loud sound or crying, and be like HELP! I'm alone and scared! I felt so bad for the girl. This continued a whole bunch of more times until Sy came home around 10:30pm. He then tried to put her down for 30 min and couldn't do it. So I went and put her down. And then she woke up again at 12:30am and 5am. It was such a bad night for her. The poor girl got so little sleep compared to her usual 11 hours.
We then spent all of Sunday trying to sleep her as best as we could. She was so tired that she slept well all morning and even decently throughout the afternoon. I felt so much hope that she would be able to fix all this bad sleep debt and get a good night's rest. But instead, she ended up having a terrible night of sleep again. She could NOT fall asleep for the life of her - even after an hour of putting her to sleep. And then she woke up again at 9:30pm, 10:30pm, and 11pm. Sy got so angry with her that he tried to sleep train her right then and there.
I am so stressed about her sleep debt. I want so badly to correct her sleep so that A) she will get adequate sleep and B) she will stop being so difficult to sleep. It's so frustrating that 1 bad day/night of sleep can takes days to fix. It makes me never want to go out EVER. But we can't live such a boring life! Oh the dilemma. Let's pray that I can fix her sleep this week. We are not going anywhere at all!
No comments:
Post a Comment