I have been doing a series of posts for Huggies and BlogHer. It's all about the first year of your child's life and pregnancy. They give us topics and I have enjoyed it because a lot of it has been topics I have not discussed on here before so it gave me a reason to write about it. Or things I might not have written about.
One of the topics they gave us for this month was tips on getting your child to sleep. And I laughed and laughed and laughed because clearly I have no tips. This is a post where I will just write my experience and then I will open up the floodgates. Sometimes I regret when I do that and this may be one of those times - but I guess if any of you out there are struggling with this same issue (and I know many of you are because I hear from you) - maybe you will find something that helps. I've given up hope and I'm pretty much just waiting out the time. In fact I tweeted this last night......
Hollis has been up every 3 hours or so every night for the last two weeks. She has a cold and it has really made things bad. We were at just once a night. I had to switch from sonic diet coke to starbucks expresso today because I'm a total zombie.
I read the books........"Babywise" and "Healthy Sleeping Habits". I honestly tried all the tricks. I think some kids just are not born great sleepers. I hit the jackpot and got two of those. Yeay - lucky me! Harper was three before she slept through the night on a consistent basis. She now sleeps great (except on those few nights when she appears in our bed in the middle of the night). In fact, she is hard to get up most mornings and will sleep in until 8 when we don't have somewhere to go. I tried EVERYTHING. I promise that every tip you leave here - I will have tried.
I read the books........"Babywise" and "Healthy Sleeping Habits". I honestly tried all the tricks. I think some kids just are not born great sleepers. I hit the jackpot and got two of those. Yeay - lucky me! Harper was three before she slept through the night on a consistent basis. She now sleeps great (except on those few nights when she appears in our bed in the middle of the night). In fact, she is hard to get up most mornings and will sleep in until 8 when we don't have somewhere to go. I tried EVERYTHING. I promise that every tip you leave here - I will have tried.
Hollis is worse than Harper ever thought of being. I think she has slept through the night less than 5 times and she is almost 20 months old. Most nights she is up two times a night and right now she is waking up at 5:45. If you see me - you will recognize me by the huge bags on my face. I try to let her cry it out but she SCREAMS and SCREAMS. And will continue screaming for hours if I let her and I just can't do it. And I've let her cry a night or two but the very next night she is back at it. So thankfully I know that eventually Harper began to sleep and Hollis will too......but it will likely be another year before she does. So I'm trying hard to be patient and wait it out. And I'm trying not to hate all the mothers with good sleepers with a burning passion of 1,000 suns. (I'm just kidding on that last part). (Kind of).
The one thing I have to be thankful for with Hollis is she is a GREAT napper. She has never fought nap time and she goes instantly to sleep every single day and sleeps at least two hours. Harper never napped. NEVER. Even when she was an infant she only cat napped. She just doesn't need sleep. And she quit naps over a year ago. I mourned that loss.
(I need to add for those of you suggesting I take away her nap - that I would rather be up all night long than go all day with her and no nap (break for me). ) :-) I would be on caffeine AND xanax then.
(I need to add for those of you suggesting I take away her nap - that I would rather be up all night long than go all day with her and no nap (break for me). ) :-) I would be on caffeine AND xanax then.
I'm just waiting for when they are teenagers and want to sleep 15 hours at night. I plan to set my alarm clock and wake them up at least twice a night. Payback is so fun! :-)
But seriously - what are your tips? Please share in the comments and maybe you can help some mothers out there looking for advice? Or y'all can feel free to tweet me in the middle of the night.....I'll be up!
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