...or the lack thereof. Sleep has become a luxury we can no longer afford. I read on someone else's blog that their baby was perfect, except for her sleeping habits. How true for us, too. I guess it's really not that bad most of the time, but she does have her nights. And it's so hard to figure out a pattern or a cause and effect for the good sleep nights vs. the "up every other hour crying until you pick me up for a couple of minutes" nights. Those with biological children would probably say to just let her cry herself to sleep. "If you keep picking her up, she's going to keep expecting that". But, of course, that's not the same for adopted children. We need to keep fostering her dependence on us so it strengthens her bonds with us. She needs to know that if she needs anything, even if it's 3am and we are sound asleep, we will be there to comfort her. Unfortunately, I don't think we've let her down yet.
She is very good at going to sleep. We try to have a routine (eat, play, bath, reading, bottle), and usually by the end of her bottle she is pretty much asleep and all we have to do is lay her down in her crib until she falls asleep. Some nights she is ready by 7:30 or 8:00, other nights it is 9:30 until she is ready (haven't quite figured that one out yet). But when she is ready to sleep, it is easy to put her down. When she's not tired yet, it becomes a battle. So we take the easy road and just extend her playtime or reading time until she is ready.
The other night she did wake up screaming at about 10:30pm, which was scary. Luckily we weren't really asleep yet (10:30 on a Saturday night, and we're in bed, what have we become?). She was almost inconsolable for about 20 minutes, it was so sad.
I think a lot of her waking up has to do with her eczema and itching. She seems fine during the day and doesn't scratch that much, but when she gets tired she scratches. And when she wakes up in the middle of the night she seems agitated, and scratches.
Alright, she must have known I was writing this, she just woke up crying...
Events in our life.
1 comment:
So great to see new pictures of Natalia! And as you know we are in exactly the same boat as you, so tired. We took her to her 12 month doctor's visit and the pediatrician said, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but 5:30am is when babies wake up." At this point I'm really thinking about just going to bed at 9pm and getting up at 5:30am!
Keep in touch--Jessie, Bob & Violet
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