Saturday, December 22, 2007

No child is alike! Aren't we lucky as parents to experience that????
Hahahaha!
I must say Nanny, Deklan slept well at night but rarely during the day. From the time we brought him home, he was a bus, busy boy. I remember not being able to get dishes done or vacuuming, or anything done because every ten or fifteen minutes, I'd have to move Deklan. I actually don't even remember putting him down for naps. Partly, because I was a neurotic 1st time mother, but also, he wouldn't sleep even if I tried so I never did! So as far as the most mundane easy task you can think of time quadrupled to get it done after I had Deklan. Luckily for me, (I say this with a broad smile on my face) ten months later Piper arrived! Piper slept all day, slept all night... the only time she didn't sleep was between 4 and 7 in the evening wherein she would scream her little lungs off for the full three hours, gripe water, swaddling, and the washing machine aside, she screamed. After that she slept. In fact I recall a distinct incident of me leaving her in the very bouncy chair Rachel hung out in whilst you were playing the wii.... (only I buckled Piper in) I ran to the washroom and quickly out again to witness Deklan rolling her across the living room floor. I chastised him and scooped her up and she never had even made a sound. After that, she spent her time in the bouncy chair on cupboards while I cleaned, or played with Deklan.
Malachi, a whole other story in itself! He as you recall, was born with a brain hemorrhage and skull fracture. Thusly, he never slept because if you laid him down the blood would rush to his head and he would scream because of the pressure it caused. If laid down, he'd also vomit all he had eaten so then he would be hungry again. Also, he was prone to choking on his own mucous as you would also probably remember. So the odd time he would cat nap, he'd end up gaggin on his mucous. Nonetheless, I suppose it's easy to assume that he was held almost the entire first year of his life. I don't think that kid ever napped either. He would sleep at least six hours at a time after he turned one but nope, never napped. Once in a while, now he will but it's few and far between, plus, he's almost five so the napping thing is almost over for me.
Bottom line
Do all children nap?
Nope.
Do all children sleep through the night?
Nope.
You might think that Josie never slept but part of that was she slept with mom and dad for ages, and then with you after that never wanting to sleep alone... I think that contributes to her inability to sleep
Also, I was a huge believer in babies sleeping with parents, Billy not. Deklan lasted a month sleeping beside our bed, on a pillow. Piper two weeks and I put her in the crib. I now, looking back, thank Billy for not letting my kids sleep in our bed because I believe that it forced them to know it's okay to sleep on their own.
Everyone has a different way of parenting, just like every child is different... but really the best thing is to sometimes let the cry
As Dr. Spackman told me,
If they're not hurt, if they're fed, then they're fine... and it's good for lung development!
So let her cry (only at bedtime) and see what happens... it's hard the first time I did it with Deklan it seemed like he cried forever. But it does get easier!
I love you guys :)

2 comments:

Nancy said...

Yeah--I can't let Rachel cry though. She is like a screaming banshee. It drives me BONKERS!

She's back to sleeping through the night, thank goodness (well, from like 10:30 until 6 am which is fine by me). I think she just knew that Andrew had finals and I was a sicky-head so she thought she'd just add to the chaos and not sleep for the whole week :)

Lacey said...

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