ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

We started sleep training the baby (6 months) this weekend using a modified Ferber method and it went surprisingly smoothly. She went down pretty quickly every night, was up a few times to nurse the first night, the second night she only woke up once to nurse. It was amazing. HOWEVER, the older kid (almost 5 years) had gotten in the habit of coming and getting me every night and I'd end up sleeping in her tiny bed. So we also created new sleep rules for her (modifying this: http://www.ogradywellbeing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/HelpYourChildSleepAlone2.pdf), which went pretty well the first two nights. But last night she woke up at 4 a.m. and came to get me and freaked out after I wouldn't lay in bed with her, crying so loud that she woke up the baby and refusing to go back to sleep. So that was kind of a shit-show.

We did cosleeping with both babies, which imo works out great until you have to eventually get them in their cribs, and then it sucks. If I were made of tougher stuff we would have just crib-trained them when they were tiny and gotten it over with but it's hard when you're exhausted and are dealing with a tiny newborn baby.

From that link:

I want my child to feel secure. I just can’t stand the thought of my child being alone and feeling so scared.

Dude's got my number.

You should have been at my house at 4:45 a.m. when my child was whimpering pathetically "I just want to be with mom and dad."

Yup, Ivy is definitely going to be sleeping in bed with me until she goes to college.

That's because of the pathetic whimpering and also the part where it happened at 4:45 am.

When people talk about co-sleeping do they mean actually in bed with them? We have a sidecar crib and it works well but I don't really think of it as co-sleeping. I am sort of dreading putting him in his own room because at the moment I can sleep next to him and put in his dummy when he stirs in the early morning which gets me at least an extra hour of sleep.

Yup, Ivy is definitely going to be sleeping in bed with me until she goes to college.

― from batman to balloon dog (carl agatha), Monday, June 8, 2015 11:45 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

We are sort of having this problem with our oldest. He's slept in his own room a few times but boomeranged back for various reasons. He's currently crashing on a blowup mattress on our floor with an understanding that he has to be out by the time he starts middle school in the fall. The little girl sleeps with us but she's definitely too big for the bed now. But we realistically can't do anything about moving her into her bedroom until her big brother is out. \o/

Why doesn't he want to sleep in his room?

I've mentioned it before but I was an anxious kid and vastly preferred to sleep with or near my parents as well. When I was 10 or 11, my mom and I lived in a one bedroom apartment and shared a bedroom and she felt so guilty about it but I thought it was the best thing ever.

It's complicated.

He slept with his mom for his first four years, when they were just two people all alone in a big house and the nearest bedroom was up a long way up a flight of stairs, so they were really used to that arrangement. We got him his own bed when I moved in, but he stayed in the same room.

Then we moved houses and he started off in his own room, but then the AC quit working in that room and he came back in. Then it was back and forth for a while and once his little sister was born, she stayed in our room too, both due to sleep apnea issues and her bedroom not actually even being a room, more a hallway. So since she got to stay with us, I think that some jealousy came into play for him as well.

But it's been okay. We're a close family. We have like, a little nest.

Sex life is horrible though. No lying.

neither of our kids want to sleep in our bed, thankfully, a scenario which I would not countenance barring recent newborn status. More annoyed that Judah's sleep schedule is just completely fucking irritating at the moment - he now refuses to go to bed until we do (typically around 10pm) and then also wakes up when we do (somewhere between 5:30 and 7:30), leaving zero personal time for either of us. How he manages to function/be so energetic on so little sleep is a mystery to me, suffice to say neither of us are getting anything done. He does come crawling in to our bed when he wakes up in the morning which is sort of cute.

that suuuucks

my life and sanity depend on those two hours after the kids are asleep

I would be cool with waking up a little earlier in the morning if he would just go to sleep earlier at night

When people talk about co-sleeping do they mean actually in bed with them?

technically it's considered as co-sleeping if the baby/child is in the same room. Health professionals use 'bed sharing' for what we consider co-sleeping

Still co-sleeping and it's better since August sort of stopped nursing. She nurses a tiny bit before bed. Yes it stopped and I shouted WEANED! But no...
Co-sleeping up to 18 months or so, I was sleep nursing, no problems. After that, I'd wake up every time and she was nursing on and off most of the night and I couldn't sleep through it. So if you are nursing, co-sleeping can be an all night, Vegas buffet for some kiddos.

Thanks, Sunny!

Yeah, Molly still wakes me up several times a night to nurse, I bat her away a lot of the times. If I had the energy I'd nightwean properly, haha. I'm still hoping the other night sleeping through will become the norm, sooner or later.

haha yeah all-night buffet is exactly why I don't bed share! Unless he wakes crying at 5am because I'm just too tired to do anything else (this happens pretty much all the time. But this too shall pass...)

Tera I had to carry Ivy out of the park today after she kept nearly falling off the slide steps but wouldn't let me stand close enough to catch her, then she wouldn't rest and drink water. And oh did she cry (after throwing herself in the ground). (Also she fell in a mud puddle but that happened early on so I let her keep going in her filthy state.)

Relatedly she's about to have her first shower with mom.

Scik do you know about p0c0 drom?

Nora has seen Poco several times! He's from Dawlish!

In other news she only woke three times between 7:30pm and 6:30am!

Yay!

I would just like to say what a gift it is when your oldest child finally works out how to make breakfast for herself and her brother and turn the TV on. Hello morning sleep in!

Aaaaaarrrrgh - afternnon nap seems to be disappearing - aaaaaarrrghh!

Yeah we've sort of given up on that lately. Morning ones still decent enough for the most part. He's also been straight up awful at sleeping through the night for the last week which is slowly starting to kill me.

Happy Father's Day!

I don't know if it's work or parenthood or what but my attention span for books has diminished to like, mysteries and humor (also decided I would read all the Discworld books (we all need goals), which are definitely at a sweet spot), but I am reading the Honest Toddler book and 1) it's really funny and 2) it's a surprisingly useful parenting book. Ivy was a really mellow baby so without a touchstone for how kooky toddlers can be, I would be a lot more worried about what is pretty standard toddler behavior.

Although after a few days of her just not sleeping, being ultra clingy, and also looking really wobbly when she walked, on a hunch I took her to the pediatrician before I wrote it all off as 18-month sleep regression, and it turns out she has another ear infection. So there's that. But stuff like literally climbing up my body if I don't pick her up fast enough, crying because she wants something and then crying when she gets it and then crying when I take it away, or some pretty awesome tantrums over... nothing visible to the adult eye, or her new thing of running in the opposite direction when you say "Ivy, come here"* is all part of the fun of toddlerhood.

*Overheard a couple of excellent dad/daughter exchanges recently, including Jeff saying, "Ivy, no. No!" and Ivy responding with a hearty, "YEAH!" or Jeff trying to get Ivy ready to leave the house and then incredulously saying, "Are you... running away from me?"

Oh god or this new thing where she does things that she knows we don't want her to do like holding out her food like she's going to drop it from her high chair, looking at us, grinning, and when start to reach for the food, dropping it. Or if we catch it she'll immediately grab her milk and throw that on the floor (which is how I know Take and Toss cups are not named after their ability withstand being tossed around without leaking). Or reaching for something she knows she's not supposed to touch, and looking at me, then I say, "No..." and she draws her hand back, then the mischievous grin, then she touches it.

All boundary testing, obviously, which I find by turns hilarious, delightful, and exhausting.

I have that thing with books too. At this rate I'll be reading airport crime any minute now

That is actually really comforting. I've always been an avid reader and I just feel like such a dummy. My library loan for Amy Poehler's ebook expired before I could finish it, ffs. I'm not exactly slogging my way through Ivanhoe, here.

Well, light reading recommendation: I've really been digging these Shetland Island mysteries by Ann Cleeves.

I dream of some day reading another book or going to a movie.

Former English major here. I mostly just read music biographies now.

I'm an English major, too. I used to read Virginia Woolf to relax when I was in law school! Now I'm looking into the supernatural steampunk romance genre...

Okay, it is definitely making me feel better that you smarties are similarly reading challenged.

I went from reading trashy fantasy/SF to... nothing

I gave up reading books years ago so I'm just holding steady post baby. Unlikely that will change for the next 2 decades.

I mostly just read music biographies now.

― how's life, Tuesday, June 23, 2015 3:56 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me too

I was on Wodehouse for a while.

The grabbing/dropping/testing thing doesn't last too long, i think, but it's pretty challenging while it's there. For Ella it was cheekiy grin/pick up something she knows she can't have, then flinging it violently away and running from the room as soon as we noticed what she was up to. It's a tactic I'm tempted to try next time I'm in trouble at work, tbh.

I'm actually reading more now than I used to, which probably comes from being in a room on my own and going to bed earlier than I used to.

Last night was pretty horrific, sleepwise. Nora went down at 7:15 as usual, and she has been going to half 10. But she woke at quarter past 9. wtf? And then nothing would get her back to sleep, so we basically did an impromptu CIO, except I stayed in the room with her and held her hand a bit while she screamed for 40 minutes and then nodded off. But that only lasted for 90 minutes, and then she work every two hours from midnight till 6.

Fun times.

I read more dumb stuff but I put it down to getting dumber as I get older, not necessarily to having kids.

can't say parenting really affected my reading at all - most of my reading is done during my morning commute and at night before bed anyway. lazing around on the couch reading on a sunday afternoon doesn't really happen v much anymore tho

CRAWLING ALERT

wahhht
Good going, Nora!
maybe it'll tire her out at night?!

Yeah! Also it is said that sleep disturbances often presage developmental milestones, so fingers crossed for you on the sleeping front. Also have fun baby proofing!

ugh in that case I expect my kids to start doing algebra next month

We've definitely found poor sleep comes before a leap. Also, speech has more or less disappeared in the last month while F's been getting to grips with walking.

Heh xp

Ivy is full speed ahead with the babbling that has the rhythm and cadence of human speech but is actually utterly nonsensical, which just amazes me every time. She was helping Jeff brush his teeth this morning, which is like her favorite thing right now, and when they finished, she ran-toddled up to me and started babbling excitedly, which sounded like she was probably telling me about the awesome tooth brushing assistance she just rendered except there were no actual English (or Spanish afaict) words uttered.

But then, at the same time, there are plenty of words she actually knows but won't use, such as when she wants a drink of my water (ie always), even though she can say not only "water" but also "agua," she just points and goes "Ma ma ma ma ma." And when I say, "Water. Can you say water?" she opens her mouth like a baby bird and leans towards the glass. See also: milk, kiss, cracker, snack. It's all just pointing and "ma ma ma ma."

Like I actually have said, "Use your words."

D is walking like a champ, almost breaking into running at times, which leads to fun things like taking a header into the TV console and getting a bruised line on his forehead. J is standing but not quite walking yet. Both of them are chatty as HELL and J often does sing-songy stuff and can match pitches we give him. J is totally embracing sippy cups and D hates them with a fiery passion. They're both eating practically everything we put in front of them, which is nice, except for when J gets bored and starts playing the "how much food can I drop on the floor" game.

xxp: oh that sounds so familiar; they'll bust out a word and you're like "ooh say that again" and it's all "DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA *raspberry*"

xp: "Use your words" is supplanting "no" as the most commonly-used phrase in our house

I was feeling quite proud of the advancement mine's made in eating (still early days) but now he's discovered blowing raspberries with bottom lip out, while eating. Sending food quite an impressive distance!