I am just needing a place to rant about this. Maybe after a couple of minutes of ranting I will feel much better and my sleep depravity will be compensated a little. I hope.
There's a real regression taking place now. I remember very vaguely (our wonderful memory is pretty much selective) the early days when Janice was born. The sleepless nights, the insecurity of not knowing if tonight is the "night" when there will be endless feeding (and worshipping God in desperation). God was good, that period of time came and passed pretty quickly on hind sight. It always feels this way, when you're at it, it's eternity. But really, I think we would consider ourselves pretty fortunate parents because Janice learnt to fall asleep on her own at 7pm and will sleep through about 6 hours straight since she was 2 months old. God knew how much we could take, so there was even minimal sleep training involved, it just happened.
Sleep is a precious commodity which we still try as much as we can to guard it, and make sure it happens for both the baby and us. So we have simple routines, that as she grew older, which increasing understanding and mobility, been more flexible than when she was a wailing baby. Janice is good, as long as she is occupied, even if she was tired, she doesn't get too cranky in the evening and eventually when she was tired she would just sleep, no fuss or much of the so called over stimulation.
For the past few months since we came back, she has been happy going to bed when she's tired, only thing is that bedtime has been "post-poned" every night to about 10pm (+/-). That's also because of work and traveling, so by the time we get back home every night, it's about 9pm. Things have still worked out well because Janice would still be able to sleep well at night, only thing is that we have allowed her the freedom to sleep on the mattress, not the cot.
So what's the problem with that? It's dusty and hard to clean the room. And I have also become the bolster at night if she were to wake up in the middle of the night. I've sort of let it pass for that, since, she has been really easy if she wakes up at night, all I have to do is to sleep on the mattress next to hers, and she has some parts of her body touching mine, we both get our beauty sleep for the rest of the night. But with both issues combined up, I decided finally to put my feet down and set up the cleaned up dusty cot, painstakingly shipped back from Brisbane. This time round, instead of putting up all four sides of the cot, we removed 2 sides, so it's more like a bed and put up a bed guard to prevent the rolling girl from falling off the bed.
Sounds like not a big deal, but to a little girl, changing sleeping arrangements is a big deal. So she has been asking me to climb into cot with her in the middle of the night and crying out every few minutes, or stirring and sitting up every few minutes through the rest of the night, after sleeping well for about 4 hours. That's not good news for me, because I don't sleep at the same time as her, and when she starts her crying, I will be about 30mins into my deep sleep, and I will be an owl for the next 5 hours. Super taxing, and I am now officially sleep deprived again after 3 nights of struggle.
So if you're reading this, maybe you're thinking, I should have stuck on to the cot thing since a long time ago, and never have allowed the habit of going in to sleep with her to set in. haha, you may have the permission to laugh at me for a few seconds, but after that, my appeal is, pray for Janice that she will settle in.
Thank you :) I feel better now.
