Damn it.
We're back in the bad sleep cycle, and it's hurting us, badly. The transition to the big girl bed has been tough, and never really had a chance to even out -- we did it, then she got horribly sick, then she got better, then she left on a vacation for 9 nights...now she's back and I hope we can beat this thing, but so far...not so much. She's figured out how to open the door to her bedroom, so at some point every night -- and on bad nights, at 4 or 5 points every night -- she comes out and wanders around. If we're in the guest bedroom near hers, she comes in and wants to climb into bed. If we're not nearby, she goes to the baby gate in the hallway and hollers and rattles the gate like she's in The Shawshank Redemption.
We don't know how to beat this. I'm not afraid (ok, I'm a little afraid -- you internets can be rough!) to say we did ultimately do modified "cry it out" when she was in her crib a few years ago, and it worked well for us. But you can't do that when they're free to roam about, I think -- she could hurt herself. It sucks.
In happier news, though, I found a new program that will let us print and bind blog into hardcover books. In the past the only software out there was incompatible with Blogger so I would have had to convert my blog to Wordpress which I'm still willing to do, but for some reason the formatting gets all screwed up (I lose paragraph breaks -- anyone know how to deal with that aside from re-inserting them all manually?). But now there's Blog2Print, which I'm very excited about. I can either use their formats and have them make the book, or I can get it as a PDF and send elsewhere if I want a fancier (like, cloth) cover. Nice! Anyone aware of other programs out there that work with Blogger?
So that's it, in a nutshell. Friggin exhausted, but able to print the blog. So...
8.10.2009
Here we are, again.
Posted by mam at 8:31 AM
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8 comments:
Sad to say this, but you're probably going to have to put a baby gate across her door. (Because it's likely that she can't actually hurt herself with anything in her room, but if she leaves the room, there are lots of things she can hurt herself with and you are (probably) completely exhausted at this point and might actually sleep through her wandering around.
Have you read the Sleeping Through the Night book by Mindell? It's one of the few books that actually did help us (a little) with Gabriel (The amazon link is here: http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Through-Night-Revised-Toddlers/dp/0060742569/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249920588&sr=1-1)
There is another book here about helping kids sleep through age 5 (I haven't actually read this one, but it is available in Kindle format)
http://www.amazon.com/Sleepeasy-Solution-Exhausted-Parents-Getting/dp/B001CUMP8C/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249920492&sr=8-15)
Not much else to say except that I have felt your pain and it sucks. It sucks in a huge, gigantic way.
G
I am also going to say baby gate across the doorway to her bedroom. I transitioned Delaney to her own bed (twin) in her own room a bit over a month ago, and at first we were really, really battling over her staying in bed. Like you, the whole thing was putting me back to those really, really bad times that I desperately needed to put behind us. I tried closing the door one night and she went ballistic. A friend told me to try a baby gate, and holy smokes, if that hasn't changed our lives. I really think it's worth a try - if you can get a fit that works so she can't pull it out like she can open the door. (now we head to FL this week and she'll be back to sharing a bed with me - so I'm sure we'll be in a similar spot to you when we get back, back in sleep hell - ugh!).
Good luck - you know I understand how awful the sleep problems are!
Gate in the doorway works well, except when they can climb out. When my kids were going through that, we had to put a hook lock on the outside of their door so that they couldn't even get the door open. It only took aobut 6 weeks of doing this and then we could stop locking. They just learned not to try opening the door!
Good luck! That's hard when you are tired!
I'm so sorry about the sleep troubles. I'm planning on keeping Claire in her crib as long as I possibly can. She's a climber though, so I know she will eventually tell me when it's time.
I did a blog book using blurb.com. It just came last week, and I'm really pleased with it. It was quite a bit of work to get it formatted like I wanted it, and you need to reimport photos to get good quality. Very worth the effort though.
p.s. Claire wore the Icky Baby skirt that used to be Lucy's today. It's so cute!
yuck.
We had our first night of getting Frances to sleep in her big girl bed. She had been in our bed, and then a sleep cot next to our bed since we moved here. I sat next to her bed until 10 when she finally fell asleep. She woke up once more and I put her back to bed with tears, sat next to her agian. When she woke a second time we let her in the cot because we are weak.
I hope she transitions soon- I think the gate on her room is a great idea. Can she get back into her bed on her own? I know the routine of placing her in her bed each time she gets out does not work because she can hold out for ever...(I bet even nanny911 would pull her hair out)
good gravy hope it works out sooner than later.
i will be coming to you for advice when you figure out this sleep thing when it's happening to me. i have no advice. :) sorry.
but cool about the blog. i am going to check that out.
I agree with LM, put a gate on her bedroom door. We do that. You can get compression gates so you don't have to screw anything into your walls. I have also felt your pain. There is nothing worse than sleep deprivation, I am convinced. Hang in there. Hope things are better than when you posted this last week.
Wow, you found the blog to print you've been looking for for! That's great! Good luck with the sleep defiant toddler. Super Nanny makes people put their kid down over and over and over and over and over... crying, screaming, kicking. Does not look like fun.
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