I felt inspired by a post I just read and I got all kinds of bursting thought bubbles above my highlighted head... I just HAD to do it...
A History In The Sleep Life of Us, Posthumously.
...because when I first read "What about you guys?" and such and was thinking, "I want to click 'comments' but why would I? We're so boring..." and then I thought,"Well, the kids DON'T sleep the same routine they did 6 months ago..." and there the was the six months before that and the six months before THAT and the months before that and then there was just Thing 1 and WOW!
It's actually changed quite a bit, now hasn't it? Maybe it's not all that boring! Harley's early days were difficult looking back. It was definitely normal seeming to us at the time due to the fact we had NOT been parents before, so anything we deemed normal was just what was happening at the time. 8 years ago, Daddy's job was at night. He'd come home and have Harley duty. She hated the bassinet that she had. And I hated that she hated it. It was beautifully constructed, couldn't she see that and understand that with her barely 3 day old brain?? What was wrong with her?!?! Later we found that it was NOT the bassinet but WAS in fact the A/C vent pointed DIRECTLY into the canopy creating a FUCKING WIND TUNNEL! Of course she hated it!! As a direct result, I believe, she then hated any air/wind on her face for years afterward.
From the wee early days she slept with daddy on his chest (protected from the a/c vent debacle that eluded us) and he stayed up with her and fed and changed and cooed and hugged. He slept while I took the day shift. I went back to work at the fairly typical six week stage. We put her in her crib because she hated the bassinet so much and two days before I was due back at the office, I knew we had to do something. Dammit all if that kid didn't sleep 8 hours that night! And slept through the night thereafter. She just wanted the crib, we thought... No, she just didn't want to sleep in a damned tornado. She was amazing. She went down at 9pm and woke at 6am. Sometimes 5am. When it was a 5am kind of day, Gpa was usually right there to get her and shooing me away...who was I to argue? I mean, it's his house right? He can get up and get the baby if he wants!! Until she was 18 months, it was sleep all night from 9-6.We moved twice and when she got to the second new place, she was uncertain about it. Her new surroundings made her uneasy when it came to night time.
She started sleepwalking and we had to put one of those handle things on the inside of her door so she wouldn't do any harm to herself. Then she was wanting to sleep with us. There was some coaxing for six months. Then at two years, she started a really cute routine... or WE started it and she ran with it. From the time she was two to when we moved again 6 months later, we would turn the lights off in the living room...turn the sound down on the TV... and we would sit with her on our couch and get cozy...then at 9 we would say "Ni-night Harley" and she would jump off the couch, give daddy a kiss and drag her binkie to bed, waving at us...she would shut her door to just a crack (we would shut it the rest of the way later) and that was it...she was sleeping. There a handful of nights this didn't work, but it worked most of the time....
Then we moved again...she didn't like that place either...what worked in the new place was letting her fall asleep on the couch THEN moving her. She stuck to her bedtime doing this, amazingly...but sometimes, just sometimes she would wake up and hang on her door and call for daddy to come get her...sometimes he did and brought her to bed with us and it was fingers and elbows in our eyes...but sometimes he would take her to the living room and hang a few minutes where she would fall back asleep and she would get carried back to bed.
When she was 4, we bought our house...and she hasn't had any problems since...a few nightmares, but nothing to write home about...
The wee one, she was different from the get go... she wanted to nurse every hour on the hour so the first two nights were HELLISH... lack of sleep inspired a talk between me and daddy whether we were wanting to give nursing the big GO or use the formula and bottles we had for backup... after no sleep in basically three days, I was ready to not go down the road of the sleepless unhappy mommy... I put the bassinet in our room and I slept on our bed the first time in 3 nights... I had premade water in bottles, premeasure formula in a container...all I had to do was dump, shake and serve. I used one hand to feed while the other hand changed the diaper that she wet after every serving which was every two hours for the first 5 weeks...then she wanted more and longer time between feedings... I woke up with her for the six weeks and daddy would take the morning shift giving me a few hours of sleep in a row. Aaaww, that daddy...
When I went back to work , Thing 2 was NOT on the same track as big sis... she was still every 3 hours at night.. sometimes...just sometimes.. a little longer...
Sometimes, she wanted to be held and not let down... and it was winter-ish time and we bundled her and swaddled her and she hated to be swaddled but she liked to be snuggled, if that makes sense... she doesn't like to be swaddled... but she likes snuggly blankies and soft comfy cushions... so we made a little snuggle cave in her bassinet and used the boppy and I'm sure there are people out there that would LOVE to hang us by our toes if they saw what we did...but then again, isn't it just super CRUNCHY of us to do what THE BABY WANTED? she slept all night like that and when she out grew that snuggly cave and the bassinet and went into the crib, we went back to waking up at some time of the night.
somewhere around 8 months she stopped the midnight wake up. She did, though, wake up earlier thought. She went down at 9 and woke up at 5:30am... we almost had her to six :) so it was close and then sometime around 10 months, we were on the schedule we are on now. What we didn't know though, was that she doesn't like to be in the pack n' play. At ALL... so going somewhere doesn't bode well with her. Also, this poor kid has been teething every day since she was 6 months old which has caused plenty of sleeplessness for me n daddy... and frustration and confirmation as to why we CLOSED AND LOCKED the baby factory. We are done, and we are enjoying this!! She has nights where all of a sudden we hear a SHRIEK!!!! Then nothing...and we fall asleep again and it's peaceful. Thing 1 napped where she fell and Thing 2 naps twice a day for two hours each and that's what makes her tick. I learned this weekend that if I go somewhere that's not my mom's or my MIL's, then I bring the pack and play.
Granted, the naps are forced, but she NEEDS them OH SO badly... she usually cries a bit and falls asleep after 20 minutes... once in awhile what she really needs is a time out, chill out time... but the naps are KEY.
It's amazing how I went from, "Ugh, why would I of all people say anything?"
to all of that up there ^^
It's amazing what the brain's first reaction is to remember something one way, and then when you think about it and think really hard... all sorts of thinks get thought! And thinking of all those thinks, I remember that little boppy cave that daddy made and that baby loved so much... it was a Godsend... the man and his brain and how it works those things out so wonderfully... That man was meant to be a daddy... he really was! As much as I almost get to the point where I miss a good excuse to watch The Simpsons Movie at 4am... sleep is good too... sleep and coffee... lots and lots of coffee...
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