The past 3 nights with Cassidy have been pretty rough. She’s working on a new tooth, so naturally she’s not sleeping well at all. Naps are practically non-existent. It’s pretty hard to see the big picture at 4 in the morning… “why won’t this baby let me SLEEP?!”, “I’m so tired; this isn’t fair!”, “will it ever get easier?!”. She woke up screaming at midnight, and again at 7:30 this morning. Bloody murder. That #$@*&!% tooth is REALLY starting to annoy me.
Then, Cassidy screamed and kicked while I changed her diaper this morning. I hadn’t even had my coffee yet and poopy diapers and baby powder are flying everywhere. Legs flailing. I thought sarcastically to myself, “this is going to be a great day…”.
I finally get her down for a nap (that she so desperately needed) this morning, then crawl into my own bed to try and catch up just a little on my sleep. Even 15 minutes would be nice. No sooner does my head hit the pillow then the baby is awake and screaming. GREAT! FINE! I’ll just never sleep AGAIN!
Joel suggests we take the baby and go out to lunch. Our favorite Thai place. Cassidy is all smiles and giggles. The restaurant workers smile and giggle with her. They love her there! A young guy sits alone at a nearby booth and we hear him talk to the waitress about money being tight and trying to find odd jobs. Cassidy starts getting impatient for her lunch and lets out a blood-curdling scream; the young guy smiles at us and Cassidy instead of getting annoyed that we’re interrupting his lunch. We quietly tell the waitress to put his lunch on our tab. She tells us how sweet we are and says “good things will come to you.” I silently look at my husband smiling across the table, then at my precious baby girl and think to myself, “we already have good things.”
I sit in the backseat to keep Cassidy company on the way home. We play peekaboo and giggle and talk to each other. When we get home, I give her a bottle and rock her to sleep. I look down at her precious, angelic face and think to myself,
“if the world ends right now, I’ll die perfectly happy.”
This post brought tears to my eyes! I’m going through the same thing with my baby as yourself right now along with being sick and having a 3 year old constantly acting out and I’ve been feeling very negative wondering when it will all pass. This is exactly what I needed to read. Thank you Amy! Merry Christmas to you and your beautiful family! I’m hoping you’ll share pictures of Cassidy’s first Christmas:)
My son never EVER napped consistently (if at all) for the first 6.5 months. At like 3-4 months I’d always lay him down at the same time and walk out and just let him cry for a bit to let him know that it’s nap time. Play music, etc. He FINALLY got the point! I did a 10am and 4pm nap (something like that).
He was always a great night sleeper though. I never raised my voice or talked “normal” to him at night. Always whispers, singing, etc. Absolutely no toys ever! He slept like a rock any time it was dark. It was great. Day time, I felt the same as your above post. It does get better! Hang in there!