Who Needs Sleep, Anyway?

Yawn. For the last week or two, HG has had some issues falling asleep. On a normal day, we could lay her down sleepy and she would roll over andgo right to sleep, then sleep for 12 hours. (7:30p-7:30a) Last week she had some issues falling asleep and would just stand in her crib and cry. After a while I would go to her and rock her to sleep.I know it is a bad habit, but she is only this small once.         

This week has been the same, until Wednesday night. It was a normal night, dinner, bath time, a massage (for HG), a bed time story and then I nursed her before putting her down for the night. Josh and I went to bed about 11:00pm. Next thing I remember was waking up to HG crying at 12:45a. As a reflex, I jumped out of bed and headed to her room. She NEVER cries out in the middle of the night unless something is wrong. When I got to her room, she started crying harder, I guess to let me know that she was really unhappy. I picked her up and gave her back her Wubbanub and she just squirmed all over the place, and felt a little bit cold. I sat down and covered her with a blanket and tried rocking her back to sleep, but she just kept squirming around. She would sit up, lay down, roll to one side, then back to the other side. She didn't have a fever so the only thing I could think of was that her teeth were bothering her. Finally, at 2:30a she went back to sleep. I put her down in her crib, adjusted the heat and before I could walk out of her room, she was crying again. So, I picked her back up and we went through the same routine. I tried to get her to sleep and she just squirmed around everywhere. We ended up laying on the couch, her laying on my chest, and I think I ended up getting an additional 1.5 hours of sleep. HG decided that at 6:15a, she was ready to get up for the day.

Thursday, we were on our regular sleep/play/eat schedule as usual. I was a little lot tired but she was in a good mood, so that made things easier. I knew that I wanted to make sure that she was in bed on time. Well, my parents came to visit and HG was up until 9:00p. But that was fine. I gave her some Motrin (because her gums are really swollen) and when they left she nursed, and settled down, and went right to sleep. I rushed and got a shower and was in bed by 10:00p on the dot. Then, it happened again. At 2:35a, I heard her in her room whining. I just laid there hoping, and praying she would go back to sleep. After 10 minutes, she was still going strong, so I got up and went into her room. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, legs throught the rail just kicking, and her Wubbanub had made it to the floor. She immediately laid her head on my shoulder and started whimpering. I didn't try to rock her to sleep in her room and put her back down, I just knew that she would wake up again and I was so tired that I just went into the living room and laid down on the couch, with her on my chest, and she squirmed for a few minutes and then we both fell asleep. I woke up at 3:30a to my cat making some annoying noise, and listened to her, trying to figure out what in the world she was doing (I still don't know what she was up too). At 4:00a, I laid HG down in her bed, snuck out of her room, and got comfortable on the couch (I didn't want to disturb Josh). At 4:35a, she was awake again. I quit. I got her up, and went throught the same routine. At 6:15a, she woke up for the day. I feel like a zombie.Josh got up at 7a and watched her while I got ready for work. I. am. exhausted.

I told one of the girls I work with, that it makes it ok not sleeping at night because she is in a good mood during the day. ...spoke too soon. She is in SUCH a mood today. She doesn't want me to hold her, but she doesn't want me to put her down. It's 11:00a and she is on her second nap. I sure hope that this changes her mood a bit.

(Note: That is not snot/drool on her face ( I would die), this is her unhappily eating her breakfast this morning)

Tomorrow I have my very first 5K. So much for being well rested for that. Josh says that if she wakes up tonight, that he will go get her and sit up with her so that I can rest. We will see how that goes. Usually when she is tired, she wants one person. . . me. I can't say that I am mad at her for that. She's so precious that I can't be mad at her for any of this.

We have narrowed down the possible causes of her not sleeping to three things 1) Sleep regression. I have been reading online (because I am DESPERATE for her to get a good nights sleep) how at 9 months babys go through a sleep regression. Good news, it's temporary, bad news, by temporary, they mean 4-6 weeks. HELP! 2) her teeth. This child CANNOT do one thing at a time. When she started crawling, she crawled, got into a sitting posistion from her stomach, and pulled herself up in her crib in one week. So, naturally, she is cutting not one, but FIVE teeth right now. 4 on top one on the bottom. Her gums have been so swollen, and I know that, that has to be painful for her. 3) I took the bumpers off of her crib. Yes, I know, you aren't supposed to use bumpers. But by the time she was sleeping in her crib, she was 3+months old and was rolling over like a champ. I took them off because now that she is pulling up on everything, and acting like she wants to walk, I don't want her to use that as a step to fall out of her crib. And I think not having the bumper in the crib, makes her feel like she's not snug in there. I told Josh that I wanted to put it back in there to see if she sleeps better, but he said that since we already have it taken out, that we just need to leave it out and let her get used to it. He's right (boy that was sour). We will have to take it out eventually so why not just stick to it now?

I really hope that this passes soon, for me, but mostly for her. I know that she is tired and her teeth hurt. It's so hard growing. And none of this is her fault. We love our little boo boo!

On a side note, HG is NINE MONTHS OLD TODAY!!! She is going to the doctor on Monday, so I'll do her 9 month update/pictures then.