Hi Cath! it has been long since my last repot
We are back home after 2 weeks in Mexico, as expected, the jetlag was the enemy to defeat...but we managed to survive 😊 i just stuck to the E of the routine and it was not that bad. However when we returned home, again jetlag plus more changes were waiting for us... the jetlag we defeated by sticking to the E time of the routine but we moved to a bigger apparment and my Lo had now a room for herself..these changes were stressful and still we are struggling with the colateral damage (😜) i.e. no napping and constant night waking 😢
Dear Cath if you bear with me, I am pretty sure you or any other mom that reads my post, will have positive and very useful comments that will help me, the story goes like this:
Before going on holiday:
She was having a 15 min nap in the morning at 9.15 am and a wonderful 2.5 hrs nap starting at 12.45pm
In Mexico,
after the first week of jetlag inconsistencies she continued napping at 9.15 to 9.30 and in the afternoon between 12.30 and 12.45 fon 1.5 hrs.
Here I have to say that sometimes we couldnt really follow the routine because we were visiting my relatives and there was no possible chance to do it, but still it went pretty well.
Back at home,
I tried to follow the routine like before we left, at first it seemed to be working but then the afternoon nap became shorter and shorter...I figured it was because I had to cap the morning nap so we could finally finish the transition to one long nap but my baby has always been a better sleeper in the morning than in the afternoon so it was difficult to cut the am nap all of a sudden... what i did was to shorten it for periods of 5min and it seemed to work.. for 3 days she slept 10 min am nap and 2hrs afternoon nap but now the things have gone from bad to worst!!
At night she wakes up several times, we tried at first the wake to sleep because she was waking up always at 5.40 am so we woke her up at 4.40 am and it worked.. for 2 days and then she started waking up at 12pm and then 11pm at 3 am so pretty inconsistent to apply the same "wake to sleep"
Now, I must say its horrible!! and on top of that she just got sick with the hand, foot and mouth disease... yeah I know, just when you think things cant get worse... she gets sick!! ofcourse she is annoyed because she has blisters all over the mouth area, legs and hands and sadly the products the peditrician gave us, dont do miracles 😧
For days now she wakes up at night and it takes us from1.5-2 hrs to help her go back to sleep. we use PD method, reassure her, touch her, I rub her belly and head, but still she cries and shouts like if we were killing her 😢
For instance, yesterday she woke up at 2am and until 4am she fell back asleep, she woke up at 7.30am and we followed the A time, then I put her in bed at 9.20am (when we got back from the doctor) and since she didnt sleep well I thought it was a good idea to let her sleep 45 minutes (guess that was my mistake) the A time was until 13.15hrs and then when I put her in bed she cried! I was with her until 13.30 that she fell asleep but for only 45 min :-( then I spent with her until 15.15 hrs (snack time) without any success... ( here I must say that PD at nap time seldom works for us) the night was awful again, she woke up repeatedly but fell back asleep on her own until 3am, that she started crying and shouting and my husband went to her room and stayed there for 1.5 hrs. She woke up at 6.48am today.
I then thought to go back to the 15min am nap and so I did that today and when I woke her up after 15 min nap, she was very cranky and crying even. We had the A time but at 12.40am I put her in bed for she was already yawning a lot and started to be annoyed because she was tired. I thought this would help but nooooo! the moment we started our ritual she started crying! I continued, hoping she might calm down but no, she didnt:-( I stayed with her until 13.20 and then brought her out of her room to see if that helped, it did :-) she was happy. After 15 min I tried again the ritual and again she cried, this time I put her in bed at 13.20 and I stayed with her until 13.30 that she fell asleep. Now its 14.28 and she is sleeping...not for long I fear 😣😣😣😣
Needlees to say that I am FRUSTRATED and totally wasted my cool is long lost 😢I take time outs between the shouts and go back in her room with more patience and calm but I dont know what else to do :-( I sat on the floor so she can see me, I carry her until she is calmed and put her back in bed (which is tough... I mean carrying 10kg) I talk to her, I say conforting words, I change my voice tone to a more authoritary one and say "its enough, lets go to sleep", I dont speak at all, I rub her back and belly, I dont touch her, we give her her special friend (a tiny sheep), but eventhough she hugs it for moments, she throws it as well... she also sleeps with one of my fleece jackets, it used to calm her pretty well but now, she keeps on putting it on her head, throwing it out, folding it, etc... before she used to have in her crib a sock snake that I made her and it had tiny bells that used to calm her but it became a distraction and something else to wave in the air, so I took it out of the crib. I think that we have done what we thought it might help but honestly, nothing seems to be helping now 😢😢😢
On top of the above we have as well tantrums! God, I feel like our baby is like a combo of "when things can go wrong" most of the time I ignore her because they can get really bad...meaning, banging her head (gently) on the floor, arching her back, pulling and throwing stuff etc...
As I am the one that is on duty most of tge times, because I stay four days at home, I really need fresh eyes...I know that probably by now, you or somebody else already know what we/I have done wrong but I am so into the problem, that I need your help to sort things out!
I thank you very very much for bearing with me until the end of my post and I will be looking forward to read your comments!
Kind regards!
Ana