Friday, March 6, 2009

Parker's evil twin

Where did my daughter spend a good portion of her night last night? - Sleeping in the middle of the living room floor.

Why? - For the last4 nights Parker has been a horrible mess. She has been waking up anywhere between 3 and 8 times a night. Generally, before 2:00, you can soothe her back to sleep by rubbing her belly. Once you hit the witching hour - she is up and will not sleep ANYWHERE except on one of her moms. This has made for a week of virtually no sleep for Alicia and I. It's much worse than when she was little. Heck, she's been sleeping through the night pretty consistenly since she was 6 weeks old! It really has not been affecting Parker at all. She is perfectly happy during the day, but at night, her evil twin returns.

We have tried lots of things.

Letting her cry - Completely ineffective with Parker and rips my heart out, so we are aren't doing that again. Additionally, the one time we tried it, when I finally went in to get her, she had taken the world's largest poop. Great. I felt like a wonderful mom.

Not picking her up, just "soothing" her while she is in the crib - This sometimes works, but not if she's crying. She will just keep on crying until you pick her up. Sometimes she will even keep crying past that if she has been going long enough. If she's not crying and you don't want her to actually wake up, you had better get in there FAST because her flailing body parts are going to wake her up soon!

Sleeping in the swing - She won't have it.

Sleeping on her tummy - Worked okay until the "witching hour" then it was back to normal

Different bedtimes - All yielded the same results

So, how does Parker end up sleeping in the middle of the floor? - Finally last night I resolved to NOT let her sleep on me. So, I layed her on the floor and sort of hovered over her, holding down all of her limbs (this sounds much more torturous than it was) and tried to soothe her to sleep. FINALLY, the baby fell asleep! YEA! But here she was in the middle of the living room. Who cares? I moved the monitor and went to bed. She loved waking up looking at the ceiling fan and having her "Brightlings" within grabbing distance.

Are there more nights on the floor in her future? I don't know, but if it means I can sleep a little, that's fine.

4 comments:

amypfan said...

Yikes. I sympathize. Bryn didn't nap for the first year of her life (except on the rare occassions when I had time to sit still and hold her), and she only slept 4-5 hours at night. So this made for a tired Mommy and Daddy. Would Parker be interested in sleeping in her carseat? That was a tried and true method with Shay. I'm a horrible mommy, but I also used to strap Bryn into her bouncy seat in front of a Baby Einstein video so that I could take a 30 minute nap. Clearly not effective for an entire night, but might yield some power napping. In any case, good luck!

Carrie said...

Seriously, Brett and Parker talked and agreed that neither would sleep this week. He's been up every 2 hours every night since Tuesday. We are both flipping exhausted too... I think with us his room has been too cold. I don't know, we tried everything else!

Cathy said...

Is she teething? Chris was always extra beastly and clingy when teething. Although it could also be a growth spurt, she's old enough for the next big one.
Also, I KNOW how hard it is to let them cry it out, (Chris was extra hard, because one good call and he'd cry the poo right out, and like you, we couldn't very well leave a dirty boy) but you've got to do it, otherwise it starts a downward spiral of Cling. And Parker is so smart, she's probably already figuring out how to work you to get her way, and this is how it starts. You are the Mommy, not Parker!
Although as a suggestion, I periodically would pull Chris into bed with me (couldn't do it everynight, again the spiral), lay him next to me facing each other, and touch my arm to his head, and the other to his belly he seemed to be satisfied with touching. I'd sleep a lot lighter, I was so afraid I'd squish him, but at least I was horizontal and sleeping.
They don't do this forever!
You can do it!

Suellen said...

I think P is in a constant state of teething! Always with the drool and the hand in her mouth. I was pretty pleased that she fell asleep next to me (instead of ON me) last night and then I was able to leave. Hopefully, we can start with that and then transition to being in her bed....or maybe it's just a phase and it will all go away!