Last night, I slept nearly uninterrupted from about 11:30 p.m. to 5:30 this morning. No, Pumpkin didn’t revert back to her sleeping-through-the-night ways (oh, I wish!). However, since Thursday mornings are the day where Hubby takes The Princess to preschool and has to get Stepson on the schoolbus, he goes in to work three hours later than usual – and so he so wonderfully offered to let me catch up on sleep last night.
And I sure took him up on it!
The thing is, Pumpkin was up like clockwork around 11:30-ish. That waking seemed to go pretty smooth. I was hoping that with Hubby getting up with her, since she doesn’t associate him with food, she’d go back to sleep faster… and that seemed to be the case with the earlier waking. That doesn’t sound like the case for her next waking. Hubby told me this a.m. that she woke up again at 2:30 (again, like clockwork) and then again at 3:45, and from there, she only fell asleep minutes before I came downstairs at 5:30 (which is debatable to me, because though she was snoozing on Hubby’s chest, she had indentations on her face from his sweatshirt that would have taken more than ten minutes, but hey, whatever).
So essentially – the wakings that I can usually get through in twenty minutes had Hubby awake for two plus hours. I feel sort of bad, but I look at his methods for doing things, and I know that was a factor. But, I KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT.
Keeping my mouth shut is a difficult thing – but if there is one surefire way to ensure that Hubby never again offers to help, criticizing his methods would be that way. Though the living room was darkened, the adjoining dining room and kitchen lights were on – so it was essentially daylight downstairs. I never do that. I turn on a small nightlight in the bathroom nearby – enough light so I don’t trip over stuff, not too much light that she gets excited and thinks it’s playtime. I had told Hubby last night before bed (my one “instruction”) that what I’ve found works is holding her close to me and wrapping her blanket around her and cuddling her up. That blanket? It was in a ball in the corner of her crib! Her Exersaucer was out, so I could tell she’d been in it (I had dumped a bunch of stuff on it last night while I was “cleaning”). I certainly don’t do playtime in the middle of the night. Stepson’s Bionicle toys were tossed on a chair, because, as Hubby said, “I didn’t want her to get into them while she was on the floor…” The television was on, but not muted.
I’m not saying my way is the right way, or the only way, or that Hubby’s way WON’T work, though it obviously didn’t work for him. I guess there is no way he’d know all of this stuff instinctively. It’s really hard to let go and not discourage him from doing things and doing them his way, and learning what will and won’t work for him and for them. It’s hard to be a mom. It’s even harder to be a mom who is a control freak.
(Side note: I’ll be taking her to the doc this a.m. to rule out any physical causes for the night wakings before we have to hunker down and sleep train… AGAIN).
About sarah
You know, I think they just have to have their own way of doing things. When someone’s crying in the night Husband is much more inclined to pop in the video that will make them stop crying. I on the other hand will let them cry for an hour before I turn on so much as a light. His way usually works out better in the end.