I look at all these little newborns and how they just lay so nicely in their parent’s arms. I mean, it was just a few months ago that I would lay down my little babe, she would just stay still and stare up at me, give me one of her cute smiles, and not go anywhere! Oh, how I miss those days!
These days, I put her down and she’s off. It doesn’t seem to matter much where she’s going as long as she’s going. This new place that we’ve moved into still has a lot more undiscovered areas and everyday she finds a new place or thing to play with. Plus she loves to be able to stand up wherever she is. And she takes full advantage of that while she’s in her crib.
As soon as we lay her down, she’s trying to stand up. Earlier this month, we began swaddling her again. It’s been off and on for the past couple of months but we realized that if we want her to go into her crib and not stand up for an hour before she starts throwing a fit because she’s so tired, we have to swaddle her. Unfortunately, that only worked for so long. As soon as we start to try to swaddle her, she starts wiggling. She hates every second of it. As soon as we leave, she twists and turns and turns into a little Houdini. She can get out of her swaddle in no time at all. And then she stands up and talks and laughs while walking around her crib. And it drives me crazy!
Because not only does she not sleep for the hour or so that she refuses to sleep even though she’s exhausted, but she starts complaining a lot – she laughs and then cries. Each time I walk in to see her standing up in her crib, she laughs and thinks she’s so funny. I don’t find it as funny. However, I also frequently find her in her crib sitting up, crying. I try to help her lay down (even though she knows how to do that) and try to get her to relax. And she hates that. She only screams louder in my face.
So if you’re ever around me between 8:30 – 9:30 am or 1:30 – 3 pm as I try to get her to go down for her nap, you can see how stressed I am. Her sleep is so important to her but unfortunately, she doesn’t know that. I mean, honestly, if I could take two 2-3 hour naps each day, I’d love it, but she doesn’t love it so much.
Lately I’ve just been letting her laugh and talk, then cry and scream until she sits down and falls asleep. It’s always kinda funny to go into her room after she’s cried herself to sleep to see her bent over, like she was sitting and fell forward asleep, sleeping so soundly. I wish there was a better solution but I can’t seem to find one as of right now. So for now, she’ll get to spend a couple hours in her crib each day, walking around and talking.
But on the flip side, I’m so proud of her that she’s so strong – after spending months just watching her lay on the ground on her back or sitting up but not move and refuse to learn how to crawl, I wasn’t sure if she’d ever try to move. And now I know – she loves to move!
