Oct. 5: Sylvia has me at a parenting low this morning. I laid her down for her morning nap, and she cried and cried. Last night when I put her down to sleep, she was quiet for about 20 minutes and then she screamed…not just cried…for about a half hour. That little girl has very strong opinions, and one of them is that she’s not so in to sleeping these days. The whole topic is sort of breaking me into little bits.
This little girl needs a consistent sleeping pattern. Her ear infections got her way off her game, but even before that…throughout August…she has had an erratic, not-very-happy sleeping existence. At night she’s back to waking every three hours and then going straight back to sleep. I’d rather her sleep for five plus hours at this point, but I’m not too worried about it. It’s the daytime naps, especially the waking after 20-40 minutes that is driving me crazy.
And if that was all the sleep she needed, I’d figure I just didn’t get a baby who needed much sleep (oh, well!), but she does very much need more sleep. After two lousy naps, she’s a total crab apple. Just as I’m trying to get supper ready.
When she was sick, I picked her up and nursed or rocked her each time she woke up. But that resulted in her waking every thirty minutes or so for hours at night. Since she’s been healthy (for the last six day), I’ve been letting her cry herself to sleep when she won’t go down or when she wakes mid-nap. She’s a determined girl. There’s a lot of crying.
I wish that parenting were easier. I wish that if you loved your baby more than anything you would just be able to do the right thing. But I’ve seen with Andrew and now with Sylvia that what they need more than anything else is a good parent. And from my perspective, being a good parent doesn’t (unfortunately) mean always doing what the baby wants. It is doing what is best for the baby, and for the family, so that everyone gets their needs met (whether they want them met or not!). From napping to discipline to manners and routines, sometimes the parent has to be the “bad guy.” Kids need their parents to set limits, to say “no,” to be consistent and firm as well as flexible and giving. I really don’t like, though, how much it can hurt my heart to be the kind of parent that I think and somehow know that my kids need.
I’m open to any suggestions anyone has about how to get Sylvia sleeping more consistently. Right now I put her down for her morning nap between 9 and 10 am and her afternoon nap between 1 and 2 pm. All I do before her nap is nurse her. She doesn’t like me to read or sing to her.
We’re thinking about switching the nursing to be just after she wakes up. Before her nap, I think we might try giving her a massage or rocking her in the dark room.
I feel like this time with Sylvia is particularly hard because it’s really just me who is responsible for her napping. When Andrew was little, Karen, Bryan, and I were all sometimes responsible for putting him down for naps. That had it’s own challenges. But with Sylvia, there’s no outside-the-family childcare, and due to division of labor and doing what is easiest, I’m the one who puts Sylvia down while Bryan takes care of Andrew. I guess that makes it a little easier to be consistent, but it also makes me feel that the responsibility for Sylvia’s sleeping unhappiness rests primarily squarely on my shoulders. It’s a heavy weight.
OK, I think I’ve had enough feeling sorry for myself. Off to get dressed and fold some laundry. Have a good Sunday! Wish Sylvia a long nap. It’s been about 20 minutes now since she stopped yelling…