Midnight Adventures

Our sweet, adorable, perfect little Bailey baby turns into a wretched monster at night.

Okay. I'm overstating a bit.

What she does is wake up, want to eat and then REFUSES to go back to sleep without crying for 20 minutes. And we have to just put her down and let her cry herself to sleep or she won't go back down at all. See the problem is not that she's not tired. While she's eating, she falls asleep with her mouth wrapped around the bottle. I'll start to take it out of her mouth, and she frantically sucks. When there is about an ounce left, I take the bottle away and burp her. I do this, because burping her almost always promotes a crying fit. So, when we've gotten all the burps out, I give her the last ounce. She almost always falls asleep during this process. Then, I slowly, slowly, slowly and gentle maneuver myself from the bed and her into her swing. I get her covered up and the swing started. Somewhere in this, she will ALWAYS wake up and start crying.

And she doesn't stop until she falls asleep.

We try bringing her into bed with us to comfort her and let her relax there. Hell, I'd let her sleep with us if she fell asleep. All it does, though, is make her cry harder. AND she grabs at me, pulling on my hair and my skin...which just makes me mad in my sleepy state. She would eat more formula, but we would then pay for that with long vomit sessions and her upset tummy. We've got to monitor how much she eats...cause she'll eat until she vomits and then want more to fill up the space she just emptied.

So, we put her down and she cries (not the loud, panicky cry...just enough to make it impossible to sleep through her). Eventually she falls asleep.

My issue with this is that I worry about her feeling abandoned. I hate the thought that she might feel like we won't respond to her cries. The problem is that when we do respond, we make the situation worse. I'm torn.

I'm wondering if she's outgrowing the swing. I am going to spend this week putting her down for her daytime naps in her crib. This weekend, Kelly is going to move the crib into our room (where it will be until she's a year old) and we'll start putting her down in her crib exclusively. Perhaps the problem is that now her body is too cramped to be in the swing for long periods of time. I don't know...it's a theory. And even if that isn't the problem, she still needs to transition to her crib for sleeping.

We're back to getting way to little sleep as we deal with this new transition. Poor Kelly...the girl looks like a mac truck has hit her...and while she is coping really well, I feel badly. I do so much better than she does with little sleep. Hopefully this will pass soon...for all of our sakes.

Today, Bailey has a doctor's appointment to get her hearing tested. She failed three times in one ear (you know, the standard hearing test) so we have to take her to a specialist. Apparently, there is no indication that she has a hearing problem, just that she wouldn't be quiet for long enough for them to accurately perform it. LOL - our loud mouth girl. The specialist has better equipment and it won't take as long or need complete silence. If she does have a hearing problem, we'll deal with it. Better to know now.

Tonight, we're leaving Bailey with a sitter for a couple of hours and going to see License to Wed with Robin Williams. Every time I see the commercials I laugh so hard I cry, so off we go. Momma needs a good laugh and Kelly is so good at indulging me when I need a short break. I'm looking forward to it...

Ahhh...sleeping beauty awakes. We have to leave the house at 8:30, so I should run and get her dressed and fed. She'll probably still scream in the car, but that's to be expected. I'll wear her when we get there and that will fix it all...