Oh Nora. My sweet little monkey, what a month it's been!
- By far, your biggest development is your forward mobility. Wow, woman, you can move! Quickly, and straight for the nastiest stuff in the house (the dog food dish, the grimy open dishwasher drawer, the soles of shoes). At least it should be building your immunity, right? (See next bullet.) One of the main benefits (for me) of your self-propulsion is that you're willing to be put down for more than 15 seconds at a time. The main benefit for you is that you can now crawl over to your big brother's train tracks, crush them, and eat the trains like some baby Godzilla.
- You had your first ear infection, and it was horrible. You poor thing—you had a fever for several days, and it got up over 104 for about 24 hours. You were on antibiotics, probiotics, garlic oil, Tylenol, ibuprofen. It was so strange to be pumping you up with all these crazy medications, but you were just miserable and I was desperate to make you feel better. On the upside, we got to spend several days and nights just cuddling together, which was beautiful.
- You're sticking with your belief that sleep is for babies, and you're no baby. Bedtime routines upward of five hours a night. After that you generally sleep through the night, but getting there is just miserable. We've tried so many different approaches, and the bottom line is that once you realize you're alone in your room, you cry. A lot. And so do I. I'm so sorry that moving to your crib has been such a hard transition for you. It really breaks my heart to not be able to give you what you want (plus, there's nothing I'd rather do than keep cuddling with you all night), but it's clear that this is for the best. It's gotta get easier for both of us soon, don't you think?
- You and Sidamo have started interacting much more. You've always been a fan of his, but he's just starting to notice your charms, too. The two of you will get into little giggle-fits together, and it's abso-flipping-lutely adorable. God, I love you both so much.
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3 comments:
Oh, poor baby. She and D must be communing somehow. 104 is no fun at all. As for the sleep, I'm so sorry (for both of you) that it hasn't gotten any better. Confession: we still co-sleep with D. He goes to bed on his own just fine, but wakes up around 11 and we put him in bed with us. I'm just curious about your comment that it's for the best to move them into their own rooms? NOT because I'm questioning YOU, but because we fell into co-sleeping "accidentally," so I have no idea when we need to end it. I also wondered - do you think moving her into Sidamo's room would help, or do you think that would just keep him awake, too?
Christina, I don't think there's ever a time when co-sleeping isn't a good idea if it's working out for all parties involved. It's great that you and D are co-sleeping! I wish we still were. The reason it wasn't working out for us is that if Nora is next to me, she absolutely refuses to sleep—for even a minute—if she's not nursing. That means that all night, anytime the boob pops out of her mouth, she screams. This started when she was 4 months, so we spent about 2 months with neither of us ever sleeping for more than 45 minutes at a stretch. We were both bleary-eyed, exhausted, barely functioning. So I decided it was time for a change, even though it's not what either of us really wanted. :-(
Putting her in with Sidamo wouldn't work at this point because a) there's no room for a crib and a bed in his room, and b) she'd keep him up.
Things are slowly improving, though, and I'm hoping by the 9-month update I'll have good things to report.
Thanks Deirdre. Honestly, I'm not sure how well the co-sleeping is working out for us. D tosses and turns and wakes up a lot, and neither Chris nor I get much quality sleep. Since I've only been back from Seattle for seven months, I've been trying to facilitate attachment (since I felt like I did a lot of damage to our relationship by having to leave just three months after D came home). I just haven't figured out a way to transition out of the co-sleeping without feeling really guilty or damaging our attachment again. *sigh* :) I look forward to your nine month "update."
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