The last 3 weeks have been an eat, sleep, poop cycle. It’s been exhausting, because Charlie gets up the requisite 2 times a night, and she seems to want to start her day before 6am. Which is really just not cool with me.
I’ve been trying to get her on the E.A.S.Y. schedule. It stands for Eat, Activity, Sleep, You. Basically, in 3 hour increments during the day, Charlie eats, then has a few minutes of awake “activity”, and then goes to sleep for 1 ½ to 2 hours. While she sleeps, I get my “you” time. (Which lately I’ve been using to play bubbleshooter online. Real productive use of my time.) I was able to get Sam on a routine when she was young, and it worked out great for us.
The biggest challenge lately for me has been to get Charlie to go to sleep. I swaddle her, and she calms down, and then gets pissed, like REALLY PISSED. She screams and is angry and generally exhausts herself until I can get her to drop off to sleep. It’s sooo tiring for me, and I usually wind up exhausted and sweaty and stressed out.
Last night, I was just so frustrated, and I remembered friends telling me that their daughters didn’t like to have their arms strapped down when they were swaddled. I thought I’d give it a try. EPIC FAIL. She was still upset, still crying, and NOT SLEEPING. Time for another tactic.
When I had been wrapping her, I would try to cross her arms across her chest, and then strap the SwaddleMe on. It would work, except her little fists would wind up by her face and she would be struggling to get her fingers in her mouth. I didn’t think this was THAT big a deal, she was still wrapped up pretty tightly. How little did I know.
After the Epic Fail of “arms out”, I decided that Charlie needed to know who was boss. My mom always called the SwaddleMe a straightjacket, and didn’t like “strapping Sam down.” I was always very insistent on it, and it was time to get tough with Charlie. I unwrapped her, put her arms down at her side, and wrapped her as tightly as I could. No shit…the kid was asleep before I could even pick her up off of the bed. Who knew that having those little fists up by her face was such a distraction?? And…AND…she slept from about 11pm to 5:30am. SCORE!!!!!
I did the same thing today, twice, and it was been working out great. This routine thing just might work!!
2 comments:
Go Swaddle Queen! I was a big swaddler until you had Sam and I have to say that I'm a fan.
How did I miss this post? You rule. My son hated being swaddled too. He was frickin' Houdini, got out every time. Bastard.
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