Slowly, but how surely?

Emelia is slowly, but surely killing her parents. The past two days were as run for me as every day last week. It isn’t that we don’t sleep it’s that the quality isn’t that great and for some reason I just can’t seem to make up sleep that I have lost. On the other hand Emelia is making (very) slow progress in improving her sleeping habits.

Going to sleep on her own inevitably involves at least some whining and at worst a couple minutes of crying. That’s the hardest part to deal with. If she would only stop the pre-bedtime crying we’d be much happier. Thankfully, it isn’t too bad, but like anything if and when she sets her mind to it she can make it seem like the world is ending.

The past couple days she’s slept through the night without waking, which is a blessing. However, she has been waking up far earlier than we want. Today she was up at 4:50am with a dirty diaper. After a change she was very, very sure that she did not want to go back into the crib. We both ended up going to the living room to kill time. At about 6am Sue came down and Emelia went to sleep in her arms. She’s clearly tired and needs the sleep, but fights to stay up when she wakes at 5am.

Emelia is also becoming more comfortable with her room. We spend plenty of time there playing and reading books before bedtime. She enjoys our time in there and is clearly not thinking of the crib or going to sleep until she hears the phrase “Time for bed!” Tonight she even showed much more interest in reading her books. She “read” one on her own and listened to mommy and daddy as we read to her.

(Almost) everybody I speak to about what we are doing supports us. On more than one occasion the same people have repeated that this is a good thing and the sooner the better. That does not make it any easier though. All I can say is that if you plan to have kids make sure you establish sleeping arrangements immediately after birth. Everybody I know that made the same mistake we did made sure they used the crib from birth for their second child. This resulted in kids that absolutely love their crib and look forward to bedtime. I’ll settle for likes the crib and can tolerate bedtime.


4 Responses to “Slowly, but how surely?”

  1. Jessie Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 6:36 am

    You could start a baby aerobics class. Why not, if you’re awake before 5:00a.m.? You could be the trainer. It could be fun….

  2. Dad Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 7:39 pm

    Being crabby at bedtime is usually held off until they are 2 or 3 years old. I would say you have a good start on it though. The lack of sleep for Mom and Dad will ease up a bit soon. But then again, as soon as you become parents you realize that you catch sleep when you can, how you can, where ever you can. I guess the next “3″ will be easier :o
    Dad.

  3. Jessie Says:
    March 20th, 2008 at 6:25 am

    d’ang that’s a lot of babies!

  4. Shaun Says:
    March 20th, 2008 at 7:12 am

    At the rate things are going two kids is looking like a hard sell. [-(