Rookie Mistake? More like stupidity!
I guess since Natalie is over a year it’s hard to blame my mistakes on being a rookie. I have to admit that what I did last night was just plain stupid.
A bit of background…If you’ve been reading this blog, it’s no secret that sleep has been our biggest challenge with Natalie. Things got really bad when she turned 11 months, and in desperation right before her birthday, I ran out and bought a toddler bed, thinking that somehow that would magically solve our problems. Co-sleeping had been making our lives easier since Natalie was 4 months old, but recently we had had quite a few instances where nursing her back to sleep in the middle of the night wasn’t working. So I figured if we were going to have to get up to either walk or nurse her in the glider, she could sleep in her own bed. Her crib really wasn’t an option because of what a project it is to put her down. With Natalie in a toddler bed, at least I could be sleeping comfortably between night-wakings.
So Natalie took to her “big girl bed” rather well and has been napping in it every day and sleeping in it at start of every night. The first night she slept in it, I swore that if she woke up in the middle of the night, I would put her back to sleep, but I wouldn’t bring her into our bed. I figured that eventually she would learn that she wasn’t coming into our bed and would stop waking up. Good plan, but hard to implement at 2 am when you have to work the next day and all you want is to lie down and go to sleep. So, like I said, she’s been starting out the night in her bed and when she wakes up, I bring her into our bed, nurse her and she’s been going back to sleep fine. Her sleep has gotten a little better (meaning she still wakes up in the middle of the night, but goes back to sleep relatively easily) and overall it’s been good compromise for all of us.
We bought the Ikea “Kritter” bed:
Back to my stupid mistake…last night a miraculous thing happened. Natalie had gone to sleep fine, but woke up an hour or so later. Chris tried to walk her to sleep, which didn’t work. So I nursed her for a while, then she stopped. Instead of getting restless and wiggly, Natalie was calm and relaxed in my arms as I rocked her. She babbled for a while, then drifted off to sleep! She’s only fallen asleep like that once before! My heart sank when she woke up about 10 minutes later and started babbling again (we could hear her on the monitor). I was about to go upstairs when Chris stopped me, reasoning that there was no reason to rush in if she wasn’t crying. I agreed, fully expecting that Natalie’s babbling was going to escalate into crying very quickly. But miracle of miracles, she got back to sleep on her own! We went to bed feeling giddy—like we’d turned a corner and there was hope that Natalie’s sleep would continue to improve.
But I couldn’t let it be.
Always the worry-wort, I was anxious when Natalie slept longer than usual. She’s only had the sniffles a few times in her life, and ironically, she sleeps more deeply and for longer stretches when she’s under the weather. Like she’s too out of it to wake up and nurse. Natalie had had a low-grade fever earlier in the day yesterday, and I feared that her fever would spike again in the night. So instead of relishing in a rare chance to get a few hours sleep without her poking me in the ribs, I laid awake, worrying. I finally fell asleep, only to wake up in a panic a few minutes later.
I decided to go into Natalie’s room and sleep on the floor next to her bed. Once I was in her room, I realized how utterly dumb that was, but in an equally stupid move, I decided to feel her forehead before I left. What on earth was I thinking?!?!?!?!? Of course as soon as I touched her she woke up.
So I carried her into our bedroom and we spent the next 5 hours half-sleeping, tossing and turning, nursing, and playing “climb over Mommy.” I think she woke up every 30 minutes or so. Finally at 7 am she started crying and crawling toward the door. I followed her into her room, where she pointed to the glider. I rocked her for a few minutes until she fell asleep, at which point I put her in her bed, where she slept for the next 2 hours.
Natalie is obviously much smarter than her mother already. And she’s obviously not the only one who has a problem sleeping…
