Monday, July 26, 2010

An update of sorts

Saturday morning, after waking up with Sasha at 2m and then 4am for the day, I called her pediatrician. Up to that day, nothing could be done to soothe her without her screaming bloody murder for a long time, I decided it was time to see if something was wrong. The doctor reassured us that there wasn't anything physiological bothering her, that it was just a severe severe separation anxiety she has (from me) So she suggested Z put her to bed every night, since that causes little to no screaming on her part. She also suggested putting her in bed a little later for now. And guess what, it worked. For the last two nights, here papa put her down, read her a book, and she went to sleep all on her own! Granted she did wake up at 2am the first night, but still.
Now, naps are a whole other story. Sigh. I am home with her alone, which means that I have to get her to nap. Which I'm sure will continue being difficult. Yesterday when I was trying to get her to nap, she screamed and she cried no matter what I tried. She wouldn't be held, rocked, I couldn't lay down next to her crib, she wouldn't lay down in our bed, storied and lullabies did nothing but anger her further. So today, I have two options: either try to lay down next to her bed and try to get her to sleep that way (hopefully being reassured that mama's right there and won't leave her will help) or leave at increasing intervals and if she's not asleep in 30 minutes, nap time is over. Both approaches are from Ferber's book (although very different): the first approach should help with a very anxious child, he says (read: separation anxiety), the second - if her naptimes are just messed up.
Either way, wish us luck. I may end up sobbing on the phone with Z though, which has happened before.

Update on the update: naptime was a big fat fail this afternoon. I lay down with Sasha, I read her a book, she read a book, a lot. Loudly (I may or may not have dozed off at some point). She'd quiet down, then get rowdy and jump all over her crib. This went on for about 45 minutes. She just wasn't going to fall asleep, it seemed. So I took her out. She was happy as can be for most of the afternoon, falling asleep at her highchair while eating her dinner. Bedtime wasn't bad either. Need a new approach for tomorrow though...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why don't you skip the naps. I'm sure it will minimize frustration on everyone's part.
If she falls asleep later on her own somewhere, fine. If not, her bedtime will be earlier. Or at least back to the original time, since you are doing later bedtimes.

Yuliya A. said...

You know, that's what ended up happening a few times this past week. Today, I also tried putting her down way later than her "normal" naptime and she fell asleep relatively easily (knock on wood). We'll see if it sticks.