Everleigh communicates brilliantly. And I think it is fair to say we have moved into toddlerhood. (Sigh.) She has always felt that naps were beneath her and wholly unnecessary. Which has been more or less difficult at different seasons.
But now she is into everything and after hours of pulling the bits of paper she's torn up and eaten out of her mouth, pulling her out of the bathroom where she's unrolled half a roll of toilet paper, replacing all the cooking dishes back in the cupboard and putting all the DVDs back in the cabinet, I expect a little down time. Not so.
Today she graciously fell asleep at 12:50pm after fussing in her high chair throughout lunch. Fell asleep after I fed her, held her. begged her into sleep. Ten minutes later I heard her upstairs yelling to get up. Seriously. I nearly cried.
Everyone brought out their best challenges to my parenting abilities and by 4pm, I was beginning to unravel. I placed Everleigh in her crib, and gave her Christopher Robin. I showed her what a good napper he is, gave him his passy and blanket and then gave her hers and her blanket. She laughed in my face. I walked away. She bounced in her crib. I looked at her. She picked up her passy and dropped it over the edge. And then maintained eye contact while doing the same with Christopher's passy. I wanted to cry. Ten minutes before Mike came home, she dropped off to sleep. She slept 25 minutes before deciding she'd had enough.
Why God?
1 comment:
I'm sending big wads of sympathy in your direction. Your post makes me want to cry *for* you.
Don't know if it would help, or if you even want suggestions, but you could try putting her in her crib at the same time every day for a set time (say, 30 to 45 minutes) and leaving her there to give you some space. Yes, she'll fuss, but it won't hurt her to be in her crib for a while. And might get her used to the idea of a set downtime each day.
Meanwhile, I'll pray that this is a glitch in her personal rhythms and that sleep will return.
-- SJ
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