My 18 Month Old is Waking During the Night

The Abby sleeping saga continues and after much reading, I've decided to to diagnose her problem as separation anxiety. We decided to give her one last chance of sleeping in her crib before we switched it out for a big girl bed. Last night we put her down and used the pray and tip-toe method after laying her down, hoping that she would sleep through the night. Alas, this did not work, but, not to worry, we had a backup plan...muah ha ha ha. We had set up her pack and play (modern words for playpen) in our bedroom right next to my side of the bed. Once the clock tolled 10:30, and of course we had just fallen asleep, we heard the cries of a wee one in the next room over. Mat went in with her and attempted to put her back to sleep, but to no avail. He brought her in our room and she stood crying in her pack and play with my arms wrapped around her. The night before, she slept with us, but it killed my back, because she insisted on sleeping on top of me. Once her crying stopped I held her hand while she stood in her pack and play and I reassured her that I'd be right there next to her. I then fell asleep holding her hand, while she stood fighting sleep for a little over an hour. She popped back up about 3 times to make sure I was still there and immediately laid back down and fell asleep.

After last night's escapade we finally broke down and packed up Abby's crib and moved the twin bed into her room. I found myself a little sad, my baby is growing up, and to make matters worse the only sheet we could find was black. For some reason, I couldn't stand my baby sleeping in black, even though black was my favorite color when I was her age...weird huh?

While doing research on how to handle Abby's sleeping issues and talking with others, I was given MANY suggestions. Here are a few, maybe they will help others.

-Bring the child to bed with the parents
-Have the child sleep on a mattress on the floor next to the parents bed
-Read to the child until she falls asleep
-Lay in the child's bed with her
-Play music/a movie in the child's room
-Use the cry it out/Ferber method (let the child cry herself to sleep, going in and comforting her every 5 or more minutes
-Let her cry as long as you can stand, then go in
-Let her cry herself to sleep and do not go in (SO harsh)!

The cry it out method never worked with Abby, and besides, a wise old homeless man once told us, "that baby needs to be rocked." So, this baby wearing, rock her to sleep Mommy can not find it in herself to let the babe cry until sleep claims her.

On a happier note, we finally got paid today! After compiling a large shopping list and withdrawing the necessary funds we headed off to the grocery store to buy some much needed food. I continue to create our grocery list based on the next ten meals that I've planned out. I still intend to post these meals/lists eventually ;) We're attempting to stick to a much tighter budget for the foreseeable future, which includes planning out all our meals and buying only what we need. It's more work to begin with, but is much easier when it comes to the day to day deciding of what to eat for dinner.

I'll be sure to let you know how Abigab likes her new bed.

Is Piglet a boy or girl?

Before Abby was born, Mat and I decided to decorate her room with the classic Winnie the Pooh theme. Since then, we've been in this argument about the gender of Piglet. One of us thinks Piglet is a girl and one a boy. So, we think that you should take a vote to decide! Leave us a comment and let us know what you think and we'll tally the votes in one week. If you don't have a Blogger account, you can still comment and check "anonymous" at the end. We're not going to tell you which of us thinks s/he's a girl/boy, and Mat, no voting!

Good News! We think the cat is out from under our house, Yay! We haven't heard her all day today, and Mat had the hatch open most of the day yesterday. Hopefully she got out yesterday, and didn't die under there, that would be stiiinky. Poor little kitty mow mow. Since the cat is out from under the house, this means that it's got to be something else keeping Abby up between one and two hours a night, ugh.

The last two nights, Abby has climbed out of her crib and cried, pounded on her door, played her piano, etc. We have tried rocking Abby every night, but she just lays there in our arms, bright eyed and bushy tailed, pinching our noses, waving, sticking her foot our face, and popping out her pacifier to say, "Hi". It's so hard not to laugh, because she's so stinking cute, but it gets a little old in the middle of the night. After a few nights of this, excuse me, I mean two weeks, we decided to let her try and cry a while in her crib since the rocking thing wasn't working too well. During this "crying" time, she decided to be a little monkey and climb, climb, climb. Last night, the second night of this, when we were at our wits end, Mat was about to go in and try his hand at laying her down, but when he poked his head in, she was asleep on the floor with her blankie and sippy cup, awwww.

Luckily, Abby's 18 month appointment was today with her new doctor, who we loved. She suggested that we wake Abby from her nap a little early and maybe move her to a toddler bed, or a twin without the box spring. After cleaning out mountains of ear wax, she discovered that Abigab had some fluid build up which may have been left over from an ear infection. This made sense to us, because she had a super high fever about two weeks ago. The night time waking may have been a result of pain from the ear infection, and turned into a routine. Now all we have to do is break the routine, ha ha ha! Easier said than done.

Have a wonderful night or day and don't forget to let us know about Piglet. If you're still unsure how to do this, click where it says "comments" in blue writing below. This will take you to a page where you can tickety type away inside the "Post a Comment" box. Next, click on the drop down menu and select "anonymous" if you have no blogger account. Last, click "post comment" and it will be posted after we approve.

New Photo Album

We are trying to find a new online photo gallery, as we have run out of space again in our current Picasa storage. I think we've found one, with unlimited space, now I just need to upload all the photos. I'll try to get that done ASAP, so you'll be able to view Abby's 18 month photos, which are now all on the computer, but not online yet. We'll be sure you know when this happens, but it may take a few days with hubby's homework load and computer occupancy.

It was a balmy 59 degrees today and we were able to relieve some of Abby's cabin fever. We went to the park for about 45 minutes and had an all around fun day, minus the whole dish rack crashing to the floor and 3 pieces breaking. We are down to seven bowls and six salad plates, which isn't a huge sacrifice considering that only two of the three of us use breakable dishes.

Abby has her 18 month appointment on Wednesday, which means more shots...boo hoo. I never look forward to the times when baby receives shots. This always results in fussing, fever, and waking during the night. We'll also be missing work on Wednesday for this, leaving an especially short work week of three days, since we already have Monday off. Well, I'm off to play with the little one currently biting my pants for an hour before bedtime.