I’ve mentioned Lucy’s sleeping before but to summarize, it wasn’t great. Well, she slept great at naptimes but only with me next to her. At first, I was annoyed. All the parenting advice I had heard said that if you waited a good 15-20 minutes until a baby was “limp limb” asleep, you could sneak away and they should stay asleep. Not Lucy! If I did that, she would be awake again within 10 minutes at least 90% of the time. And wouldn’t go back to sleep so if I took the chance, I risk losing that time for any resting at all. But I’m not a believer in sleep training, I think Lucy had a real need for us to be close by when she slept and she would eventually outgrow that need. So we waited.
And waited…and waited. And except for a rough patches when big developmental things were happing and teeth were appearing, things have slowly progressed. I kept my patience by remembering that since she woke up a lot at night, I needed the naps more than an hour to clean or do projects anyway.
But last month when we were at my parent’s, I saw signs of change. Good signs. So when we got home, I gave us a few days to get back into our normal routine, then I started leaving her at naptime. I started with the afternoon nap since that is supposed to be a deeper sleep. Low and behold, she stayed asleep!
It’s been two weeks now and she has done great. Sometimes I still nap with her in the morning if I am tired but I’m writing this at 10:42 am and she has been sleeping by herself for an hour now. Its nice to now that she really just did need the time to develop that independence and that by not sleep training her, I wasn’t dooming her to a life of imsomnia, sleep apnea or even selfishness and lack of self-discipline as certain books might have implied.
I’ve heard several mothers say that they needed their babies to get their babies napping well so they could rest or have some time to themselves, it made them better mothers. I don’t know if that is true or not, I’m not them, but that was a really hard statement for me to hear. I kept questioning my own mothering…would I be a better mom (i.e. more patient, loving, organized, fun, etc) if I had time alone? I always envisioned myself being this super mom if I ever had even an hour or two by myself, to read my bible, do chores, read a novel, do a craft project – all those things it was hard to do with a tag-along.
Turns out, that’s not what has been happening. Apparently, whatever developmental milestone Lucy hit that lets her nap independently, also turned my sweet baby into a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde toddler. I thought I had another year before the “terribles hit” but these past two weeks have been full of tantrums, screaming and fits – and don’t even get me started on Lucy’s behavior :-)
About 10% of the tantrums are because she can’t communicate to me what she wants. Sometimes if I tell her to stop screaming, she will sign the right thing and we will be fine. Or she will sign every sign she knows before realizing that none of them are working so she starts screaming again. Those are the times I feel the worst because I can’t help her and I do truly sympathize.
Another 10% of the time, I know exactly what she wants and she knows that I understand but I have told her no. Those aren’t fun either but at least I know where we stand.
The rest of the time we are both frustrated because it seems like she doesn’t even know what she wants. She’s be sitting next to me on the couch listening to a story, then she’ll climb down only to turn around a yell at me to pick her back up! Or she’ll sign eat but when I put her in the chair she’ll throw her food and sign all done, but if I put her down again, she’ll go pick up the peas of the floor, hand them to me and sign eat! Ahh!
Needless to say, these two weeks have been exhausting! And by the time one of her naps rolls around, I’m too brain dead to even think of what I was going to spend my “free time” doing.
So I’m not a super mom yet. I still have little to no time to craft and I read my bible in the few minutes I can get her distracted in the mornings, or if she is being cooperative and will sit with me as I read it aloud. But I am thankful she is napping. Maybe God just knew that I was going to need a break during these days and decided to give me one.
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