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Attachment Parenting
Realizing "one" isn't going to be the miracle I'm hoping for
It seems like so many of the frustrating parts of raising my LO have been soothed with the advice that "it gets better after they turn one." We are just a few weeks from her first birthday, and I'm seriously doubting so many of my parenting decisions.
Like co-sleeping and not doing any sleep training. My bedsharing LO never sleeps more than two hours at a time, and usually she's up every single hour during the night. We have tried Dr. Sears' advice and the NCSS tips for MONTHS, and while I can now at least get her to sleep her first stretch in her crib, the rest of my night is a freaking nightmare. That whole idea that how they start the night is how the rest of the night will go? My LO blows that one out of the water.
And then there's the decision to follow BLW for introducing solid foods. The book says BLW babes will be less picky and will eat what they need. I highly doubt that claim. If food before one is just for fun, what do you do when your 1-year-old will only eat two or three peas or cheerios a day? She is offered everything we eat. In a given week, she is offered 7-10 different veggies and fruits, cheese, meat, yogurt, cheerios, pasta, beans.... and she barely touches any of it, let alone eats it. Yesterday, she ate five black beans and four cheerios. That's all that passed her lips across three meals and one snack. Everything else ended up on the floor. Plus, she only nursed three or four times during the day, but she then proceeded to wake every hour last night to nurse, where she slurped happily while I laid awake lamenting the state of things.
Isn't it supposed to be getting better by now? My pedi assured me that as she got closer to one she would start sleeping longer and eating better, but I'm not seeing it. I don't know what to do. I feel like CIO at this point is even more cruel than it would have been 6 months ago, and for the food, I certainly can't force feed her. I just don't know how many more sleepless nights and wasted meals my mental state can take.
To be fair, my LO is the happiest little girl in the world. She adores her dad and me
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Re: Realizing "one" isn't going to be the miracle I'm hoping for
I totally feel your pain.
LO will be 2 this month (!!!!) and she was very similar to what your LO sounds like. The happiest kid in the world, but she has/had food and sleeping issues.
I am assuming you breastfeed? I don't think you mention it, so I hope I'm right. Here is my take on it. Some kids walk early, some kids talk early, some kids eat early, some kids sleep early.
The eating thing is frustrating. LO really didn't start eating meals until a few months ago, and we are still hit or miss. Pedi was not concerned because she was still BFing and did eat a variety of textures, just not a lot. Some days she would eat a few cheerios and that's it. Some days she would throw the cheerios but eat a whole bowl of strawberries. Then refuse them the next day. Pasta was a hit most of the time, but not always. Breakfast and dinner has always been a battle, lunch is a bit better. Really, now we are lucky to get her to eat 2 meals a day, but she will snack a few times a day, so I kind of think she is a typical toddler at this point. But when she was 12-15 months I would get so frustrated hearing "oh, my kid eats 3 meals a day PLUS snacks." That never happened. Even when she goes through growth spurts she doesn't do that. We still BF, but it has slowed down to 3-5 times a day from 4-8 times a day, and night.
Which leads me to sleeping. LO woke up about every 2 hours until she was 20 months and I had DH sleep with her. She nursed a lot at night, and i think that combined with me sleeping next to her kept her up. So at 20 months, I nursed her at night, then DH took her to bed and read her books. That is still what happens now. DH sleeps next to her, instead of me, and she wakes up far less. If I am not around, she will usually STTN. I really think she wakes up when I am there because of my smell. She either wants to nurse or snuggle, but she doesn't want to do that with DH. (poor dh!) That all being said, I don't think she was ready to make that switch until she was 20 months. I could just tell she could not get herself to fall asleep on her own, without nursing or rocking, until she was around 19-20 months. She would nurse, then toss and turn for a long time, trying to fall asleep, then have to nurse again for 3-5 minutes before she zonked out. Now she nurses at bedtime and then DH takes her and she sleeps until morning (right now that is 5-6 am) when I will nurse her, and she will fall back asleep until 7ish) It took her a few weeks after night weaning to get to this point.
I had many times where I felt like you - just come on - why can't my kid sleep yet?! or eat better?! but like i said before, I just think some kids are ready for those things at different paces. like walking and crawling, but our society doens't think of them like that. It's not like they hit 12 months and BAM they suddenly change. 12 months seems to be the "average" age, but many kids hit it before or after.
LIke your kiddo, my kid id really happy. She rarely throws tantrums, and when she does they are like 5 minutes long. I take some comfort in that, after watching my nanny's kid who is constantly crying or tantruming, but eats at ton. KWIM?
Hope this helps.
I think we have a lot in common.
Regarding the sleep, you have to decide what you can live with and what you can't. If you're tired, both physically and emotionally, of how things are... then change it. Don't regret what you've done, try something else. I'd recommend the Sleep Lady Shuffle as a gentler approach to sleep training. If it makes you feel better, we've tried Ferber a few times since 6 months... and it got us a baby that goes to sleep in his crib but is still up 2-4 x a night. So same deal, and we've had a few hellacious weeks of sleep training. I kind of wish we wouldn't have bothered because it didn't work and it sucked. We are planning to try again, though, once DH is off work for the summer and can be more involved.
For food, my son didn't really start eating until I went back to work and he had no choice. So if you do want to kick-start it, you could try lowering the amount you allow nursing. This might involve you leaving him with someone for extended time during the day for a few days (even a weekend where you leave him with dad for 5+ hours would probably do it). That said, odds are he'll start eating eventually. No one tells you that for some kids, that's closer to 18 months.
You might find a La Leche toddler meeting a really nice place to visit. You are not the only mom in this boat.
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Before doing this, I agonized about how he would feel so abandoned, how I didn't want to 'cio' etc etc, and it just wasn't as bad as I feared. And I realized, he wasn't sleeping great because the three of us were disturbing each other. He needed to be on his own. I'm not saying that the transition will go this smoothly for everyone, but that for me, altering my idea of being this attached/cosleeping/bedsharing mom was the key to us all getting a better nights sleep.
I just want to give you a world as beautiful as you are to me.
I only occasionally visit this board and I'm not really a Dr Sears follower, but I definitely do lean towards the baby-led route of parenting and using gentle methods for everything. But I can definitely sympathize with your sleep situation. My daughter naturally slept beautifully while I was on maternity leave, only woke up once in the night to eat & went right back to sleep, but when I returned to work, she started waking so often & I just reached a breaking point with her in my bed every morning, wiggling, kicking, and smacking me! (I'm totally not joking.)
We just started keeping her in her separate crib for the night. We're not crying it out, but we are keeping in her in the crib - so if she wakes & cries, I pat her back to sleep, which takes awhile but works - she knows I'm there, so she's not abandoned but I'm keeping the stimulus to a minimum by keeping her in bed. If she really started to wale, I'd pick her up but haven't had to do that yet. She still eats 1-2xnight, but it's definitely an improvement - she's sleeping better & so am I. It's not cruel and if bedsharing isn't working out for you, change it.
The Baby Whisperer had some gentle suggestions & I use some of them, but not to the T. I just appreciated having a few ideas that were something other than bedshare vs CIO. Those aren't your only options, I promise.
Does she like to eat things that she "steals" from your plate? DS basically got all his first solids as stolen food, reaching over to his sister's plate and grabbing what looked interesting (which is why his very first meat was a chick-fil-a nugget
). To this day he'd prefer to steal half my bagel than to eat the identical bagel on his plate.
Or maybe she would prefer to be spoon fed? It's not a bad thing and you don't have to force feed her. Just offer her bites on a spoon. It's just less work for her and sometimes even babies IMO want to take the easy way.
As for sleep, I've got nothing. Mine were both pretty crap sleepers at 12mo. But I suspect if you can get more food in her (solids or BM) during the day you'll get at least a little bit more sleep at night.
I'm sorry :-(
My DS is only 9 months, so I can't offer much advice, but I did read that there are certain windows that are optimal for sleep training, and 12-16 months is supposed to be one of those optimal windows...
My son has always been a frequent night-waker. We used the SleepEasy Solution a few months ago and it worked ok (he still woke a few times) and with minimal crying (it was 20 min tops), but after he cut two teeth in a day and got sick it all went out the window. When we tried to retrain him he cried. for. 2. hours. It was horrible and I decided to forget it.
Right now we are doing something called the Holistic Baby Sleep System. It uses the principles of Chinese Medicine to reset the baby's internal clock and sleep cycles. It's basically acupressure points that you do once a week. So far it has helped, even through cutting another tooth, Roseola, and the beginnings of separation anxiety! It hasn't solved all of our sleep problems (he still wakes at night and refuses to sleep in his crib) but he wakes significantly less (from 10 times a night to 4ish) and barely nurses at night now, where he used to eat at every waking. Here is the link, in case you are interested: https://holisticbabysleepsystem.com/ We bought the booklet, but now she has a DVD that is supposed to be great.
Good luck. It sucks to be told to hang in there because the magical age where they x, y, and z comes when it comes! Hope any of this is helpful!
I can't offer any advice on the sleep issues, we are still bedsharing and waking every so many hours. But in just the last 3 days, DD has gone from barely eating to getting mad and signing "eat" if she even senses there is food to be had. I think it just comes with time, especially if they are BF'ing.
Hugs...
DD only started STTN when she started eating a lot more solids. Otherwise, she was just too hungry to go all night without food.
I did BLW with both kids, and they both were not the "garbage disposal" type. So just keep up with it. Is your LO getting hungry at all? That has been an important piece of getting my kids to really eat solids. They have to be a little hungry at mealtime.
Jacob and Melissa | Sept. 3, 2007 | Riviera Maya, Mexico
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