Ahhh, peace and quiet. The two older kids are at school and Amanda is upstairs napping. I'm not sure if she is actually sleeping, but she's quiet, so I don't care. Unless she's dead, which I'm pretty sure she's not, and then I would be quite sad. Sorry, tangent.
Adjusting to "Back to School" has been a lot easier than I thought. Andy wakes up before any of us, and pretty much takes care of himself in the morning. Sarah wakes up soon after and I rarely have to prod her to get going. Amanda wakes some time between 6:00-7:00 a.m. so I am up as well. It's weird, but this week the whole family has been up and ready to go very early. Yesterday we were all eating breakfast at 7:30 a.m., which is definitely a first. It was strange, but I like it.
The person who has had the hardest adjustment to our new schedule is Amanda. The last six weeks of summer were pretty hard on her. Since we were traveling so much and staying in other people's homes or staying in rental homes with other people, as well as the whole family sleeping in one room, we were very careful to to attend to her quickly if she even made a tiny noise during the night. I would grab her and nurse her and often let her go back to sleep in our bed. Bad, very bad. Charlie and I know this is bad, we've known it for a very long time, but at the time it seemed like the only solution. After doing that 1-2 times a night for over a month, her sleep schedule was shot. Remember how I wrote that post about how she had finally turned a corner and wouldn't even cry when I put her down to bed? Yeah, shot. Now she was crying as soon as I walked in the bedroom and continued to cry the entire time I was getting her ready for bed. If Charlie was holding her and it was time for bed, she wouldn't even make eye contact with me because she knew I was going to take her and get her ready for bed. Cute and funny, but not so much after she started screaming.
At the same time I am pretty sure she is cutting teeth. A lot of teeth. Right now she has four on top and two on the bottom. So not only do the other two bottom teeth need to come in, but she's has four molars on the way. Her gums are swollen and red and she is not happy. In addition to that, we still haven't gotten her allergies under control. At her one-year check-up her doctor agreed to let her start taking Zurtec, but she is still snotty all day long. Her nose is constantly running and she hates it when you wipe her nose. Everything together makes for one very cranky baby.
So, Charlie and I decided we had to do something and we had to be a little bit hard core. We couldn't be nice about it anymore, because nice wasn't working. On Sunday night, she started screaming in the middle of the night. After awhile I went into her room but this time refused to pick her up. Instead, I just lied down on the floor. She cried and cried and cried, but finally realized I wasn't going anywhere and I wasn't going to pick her up, and eventually sat down then lied down then went to sleep. About two hours after I left my bed I made my way back in, only for her to wake up again an hour later. Ugh, hard core sucks for Mommy and Daddy. Unfortunately Sarah hasn't started her Monday Nature School yet, so I didn't get to try my new nap routine and we were all out of whack. However, Monday night she was tired. She cried in the middle of the night and this time I stayed in bed. I waited about 10-15 minutes and was about to go into her room when she stopped. She went back to sleep. Yay! She was up at 6:00 a.m., but that's okay. I almost got a full night's sleep. She's been getting better every night. She cried again last night, but only for about five minutes, and then I actually woke her up after 7:00 a.m. I think we might be getting there, but I'm not going to make any bold statements that are going to come back and bite me.
The other sleep issue I needed to fix was Amanda's nap schedule. All summer she had been napping around 10:00 a.m., but was slowly starting to nap less and less. That makes sense because she's getting older and doesn't need to sleep that long after just getting up three hours earlier. That would be fine, except she doesn't take an afternoon nap. It just doesn't work with the kids' schedules. She gets to take cat naps in the car most afternoons, but never a full in her bed nap. So I needed to move her nap to later in the day so she would sleep longer and could make it until bedtime. The problem was, she was tired at 10:00 a.m. She didn't want to wait and if I didn't put her down at the right time I missed my window and she wouldn't sleep at all.
I started on Tuesday. Fed her lunch, then put her down for a nap. She cried for about 30-45 minutes and slept for about the same before I had to wake her up to go get Sarah. She would have slept longer, but we had to go. Yesterday was craziness so she didn't get any real nap but I tried again today. Fed her lunch and then put her in her crib. She cried for about five minutes. Done. I'm sure all the stuff we are doing at night helped and so did the later nap time and maybe even a lunch food coma, but I don't care. I just hope it can continue. The only bad part is that I can't be out running errands and doing thing past 10:00 a.m. or she'll fall asleep in the car and ruin everything. But that's okay, now I can write when it's light out instead of at midnight.
It's not perfect, but we'll get there. I know I've said it before, but what else can I do but keep trying until everything sticks. Our older two are great sleepers, except for minor issues with Sarah having bad dreams lately, so I know she'll get there too. All her activity and almost walking should help as well, because by the end of the day she is pooped out.
Speaking of poop, another thing I need to get back on track is her infant potty training. She was doing really well most of the summer and was going almost every time I took her, about every two hours. But something happened towards the end of the summer, and now she refuses to sit on the toilet. Or, she'll sit on the toilet but won't go. My friend, Ellie, who did it will all three of her boys, says it's quite normal that they have a little rebellion stage and to just back off a little but keep trying gently. Eventually she'll get back in the groove. Well, she's definitely letting me know she doesn't want to play my way. The last two nights I've tried to get her to go before a bath and she wouldn't. Then I set her down on the floor while I got everything ready, and she peed on the floor. Not nice, but luckily it's tile so easy to wipe up. Today she went one step further. I tried to get her to go and again she sat there but wouldn't go. When she started to fuss I put her on the floor. I left the room for about 15 seconds to go get another diaper. When I came back she had pooped on the floor. There is no way she didn't know she had to go when I had her on the toilet, she's just being difficult. One more thing we need to get back on track in the next couple of weeks, ugh!
On a happy note, Sarah is doing fantastic at school. She hasn't cried since the first day and today even wanted to go to school early. I can't remember the last time she asked me if it was time to go to school yet. Her teachers are AWESOME. This summer I kept telling her I hoped she got Miss Martha and if not Miss Martha then Miss Lorena. It would be okay if she didn't get either, but we were hoping for one of them. Well, they switched the teaching schedule around and she ended up getting both of them. It's like the dream team of teaching. I could not have asked for a better situation. They are wonderful and she loves them and she is starting to love school. I know this is going to be a great year!
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