Wednesday, August 31, 2011

No Napping Saga

I am at my wits end and I seriously feel like I'm losing my mind. I mean how many days in a row can a woman go without having any break whatsoever? I love Bailey with all my heart but I'm completely frustrated and exhausted because I cannot, for the life of me, get that child to take naps. She'll happily sleep if I lay next to her and nurse her for the nap's entirety but that obviously not realistic.

I'm not sure if this is just a phase or what. I really felt like we were getting somewhere a few months back but in the area of napping, she's regressing. I feel a little fried because from sun up to sun down there is not a time when I'm not caring for her. My saving grace is that she sleeps through the night so I at least get that time but during the day, she's constantly attached to me. This means that I can't ever make use of nap time and exercise or do laundry or clean. I can never focus solely on the older girls, who sacrifice so much of me as it is. And I definitely can't just relax. Ever.

To make matters worse, the byproduct of a non-napping baby is a grumpy one. It seems like she's always wanting to be held and nursed in the afternoons, and that's because she's exhausted. She'll usually have a meltdown around dinner time where she ONLY wants to nurse and it's kind of hard to sit there doing that when I'm throwing dinner on the table. It's so frustrating because if I do get her to sleep during these times she'll wake up the second I put her in her crib.

I'm not trying to be overly dramatic here but I'm really feeling very discouraged. Life is wonderful and my precious baby lights up my life.. But in this area, I just feel hopeless. I feel like she'll never nap. Like I'll never rest again. Like what I want to do will never get done. Like I could cry.

I'm not opposed to the Cry-It-Out method, when done correctly. We let Brooke cry around 6 months for a similar reason and it worked wonders for her. We had a happier baby and a MUCH happier Mommy. However, letting Bailey cry seems a lot more challenging because now John works nights and I don't want her screaming to interrupt his sleep, though he swears it won't. I also don't want the other girls' nap time to be messed up either. I know that it would just take a couple of days and she would "get it" but those two days seems like climbing Mt. Everest to me right now.

My asthma has been acting up so bad and I've been up at night not being able to breathe. From that I'm beyond exhausted and I know that that most likely lowers my tolerance for having absolutely NO break during the day. I'm trying to take it one day at a time and prevent myself from looking at it like it will never be any different.. ever.. but that's not so easy. It's just hard to wake up in the morning knowing that you will be "on duty" ALL. DAY. LONG.

Here's to finding a solution to this madness.. And FAST. This is one fried mama right here. Holy smokes!

2 comments:

rccalyn said...

Ugh, sounds miserable! Has it been going on long or did it just start recently? Could it just be a growth spurt or teeth or something funny you've been eating? I'd say if it's been going on long, CIO might be your only answer. Could you do it on a different floor in a pack and play so it wouldn't bother everyone? I've found that Roman goes to sleep much harder when he's overtired. I wonder if that's caught up with her so she feels stuck too. Same thing happened with Arianna (older though) and Dan ended up just doing whatever it took to get her caught up on sleep before she could do it herself. I'm sure you know all this though...good luck!

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness Jillian - I so feel your pain on this one...John so far is a horrible napper...if he is being held, not so bad, but I can't hold him all the time and take care of Ray....otherwise, I get maybe 1/2 hour stints from him until about 8pm or so, then he naps till 10pm, eats and goes to bed for the night (usually, the past few nights he has wanted a 3am feeding)....the no break thing is driving me nuts too....I thought he was doing it cause Ray is loud and John doesn't have much room to sleep....sort of makes me feel better that Bailey is doing a similar thing. Hope she sleeps soon. :)