Around 6 months pregnant, I finally decided that Carl was allowed to keep his version of "the man cave" - his studio with all his audio equipment, guitars, speakers, microphones...etc. Because he worked so hard to put it together, because he needed a space that I didn't touch, I gave very little argument when it was decided that Julia's room would be downstairs from our bedroom. In fact, once everyone gasped when they realized where the baby's room would be, I was determine to justify it by saying "But I have a baby monitor that sees and hears!". It didn't really matter too much during the time anyway, because Julia was going to initially sleep in her bassinet in our room for the first couple of months.....
Well the bassinet ended up being a diaper, wipes, clothes holder within a week and she has yet to sleep a night in her own room.
Initially, she found her way into the bed because of breastfeeding at night. Something I now highly recommend to everyone. If you plan to breastfeed, then co-sleep, because that's the only way you're going to get some sleep. And if you had a C-section, it's the only way you won't hurt from the constant sitting up and lying down in the middle of the night. My life was made easier by co-sleeping and it got better when I was able to just barely open my eyes, find her nursing away on her own, and be able to fall back asleep.
We've always said that we would put her in her own bed when she was weaned. She is now nursing every other night and she's still happily sleeping in our bed. We went through an initial phase of her kicking us in the head for a while there but otherwise, we really enjoy it. I also have this extreme anxiety of someone breaking in the house and nabbing her - something my trusty baby monitor won't stop just witness. They never tell you how incredibly over protective and anxiety ridden you become once you become a mommy. And although I know my fears are irrational, I can't help wanting to protect her from the unknown.
But this has made her really dependent on sleeping with SOMEONE rather than on her own. A MAJOR PROBLEM especially when it's time to bring her to her own bed. I did for quite some time, try to ensure that everyone that was watching her, including myself, worked on getting her to sleep in the crib during the daytime. But one by one, all the people I depended on to help me do this gave up and I was the last one to just finally say screw it. At some point, Julia learned how to scream bloody murder for long durations of time when she realized she was being left in the crib.
And this is where my professional training has a hard time kicking in. Although there was a point we were able to get her to sleep in the crib, it was through pure exhaustion from crying. I tried a modified Ferber method - where I would leave her room door open and so she was able to see me. But she just stood there and pointed at me crying. Eventually, I moved to going in, placing her down on the crib each time she stood up and leaving my hand on her back. I gradually reduced the amount of time I placed on her back until it was a light pat and I always made it a point to walk out of the room even though I knew I was going to be coming back in. This sometimes took me an hour to accomplish but it eventually worked. Unfortunately, consistency is key and the grandparents were not at all too happy to perform this process and I stopped trying to convince them. There are just some battles you choose to fight and some you don't.
So, here she is at almost 21 months sleeping blissfully away on our bed - good thing we have a King size bed. We've trained her not to kick us in the head (or really trained ourselves to not get kicked), we deal with the less room to spread out and we wake up each morning to "Mama? Dada? Dada sleeping, shhhhhh!". Carl has justified this by saying "When she's ready, we'll know"and I've tried to justify this by saying "Many families co-sleep till 6 or 7 and it's perfectly healthy". Many will call this learned helplessness but I call it one of the few moments we have together as a family in the day.
Eventually I will get back to it but at least I have till she's 6 or 7, right?
We have a similar situation. Somehow I worked it out that Charlie sleeps in his crib until 3 or 4 am, at which point I bring him to bed with me. I'm conflicted about whether or not to try and get him to stay in the crib all night. I like having him there, and he is in the middle of the separation anxiety phase, but it drives me crazy that I can't wake up in the morning without waking him up too. I'd so love to have a few minutes of peace and quiet first thing in the morning sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI know how you feel!!! I ended up having to wake up super early on Saturdays and slowly sneak out of the bed so I can have a couple of hours of Me time.
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