Vacuum! March 17, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : She Blinded me with Science , add a commentWow, Rule number 1 of fixing a vacuum cleaner-
PUT DOWN A PIECE OF NEWSPAPER BEFORE YOU OPEN THE DAMN THING!
Or you could just PRAY like I did that the stupid thing works once you have dust all over the place!
On the plus side, I fixed the vacuum! (turns out there was an airline bag tag stuck in the intake…)
Desperate Update March 17, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : I dream of sleep , 6 commentsWell, Last night was one massive CF*.
Luna went to bed ok. When she got up at 2, I got her sippy. She took one look and asked for her bottle. I told her that the bottles were sleeping because it was nighttime. Ok, she took that pretty well. She took 2 sips out of the sippy and decided that was enough.
Then the fun began.
I told her that we could only snuggle for 2 songs. Then I put her in her bed. I even climbed in with her. She rested for 30 minutes. She never fell asleep, just rested near me. I climbed out of her bed and
sat in the comfy chair that is next to her bed and rubbed her back. I left after 25 more minutes and rested on the couch while she complained to me. I came back in 5 minutes and rubbed her back and
told her mommy had to go to bed. I left and again the complaints. I traded with Dr. Jay (I had actually heard her at 1:30 and thought I got her then..Lack of sleep). I didn’t sleep during the next hour
where Dr. Jay and Luna fought over this idea of sleeping. I finally lost it and came out and Dr. Jay and I had a few choice words for each other (not a good mommy/daddy moment). He went to bed, I sat in the chair next to Luna crying (me, not Luna). She rubbed my hand until I stopped crying. Then she tried to get out of bed again. I told her no, you have to sleep.
She protested. I put her back down. Then I turned her light on a little. I put her sippy back in the fridge. She complained for her milk. So I brought it back. She tried to get up again. I told her NO, MOMMY HAS TO SLEEP. She laid back down and I left.
She protested some more, but never a full-blown cry. She was protesting on and off until 5am. I fell asleep then. She did put herself back to sleep without us.
At 6:40am, Soleil came in our room.
I want to say this was a failure. But at the same point, I don’t think it was.
1) she didn’t need milk. As I suspected, she is using the bottle as a comfort. This is something we let Soleil do far too long overnight. I want to break that habit now. She has her pacifiers which is something Soleil gave up at 3 months.
2) She did eventually go to sleep without us. Dr. Jay pointed out that we could have had her down in 10 minutes if we held her in the chair and gave her a bottle. Yes, we could have, but the point is to help
her learn how to soothe herself to sleep.
3) She didn’t get so upset that she was sobbing uncontrolably. I can’t stand that. It is hard enough for me to hear her complaining, but a full sobbing kills me.
So I am planning to be the on-call parent again tonight. At least I know I can sleep in until 8 tomorrow morning, so I will be more patient with Luna and help her sleep. I can’t give up after one
day. We will help her sleep. She will learn. It’s my goal to help her learn.
In one way, helping her sleep is as important as helping Soleil learn to calm herself when she goes non-linear…
* CF= cluster fuck
