Earplugs please
So I realized today that not too long after posting that long awesome post about how Stephen puts the kids to bed on a regular basis, Alli has gone to bed with me pretty much every night. I have definitely said "You do it" to him and he has never refused, but at least four times that I can think of, he has come back out with her still awake and said "I give up, she wants you" and I have had to go back in and nurse her again and lay with her forever until she slept. Most of these times she didn't get to sleep until very late, after 10 p.m. or worse.
So I said to him, I haven't put Ben to bed in eons, I've been the one to put Alli down for the last ????? and he said OK, no problem.
Well, I can hear her screaming and screaming and screaming and I don't know what to do. Her teeth hurt, and being with me isn't going to make them not hurt. I'm worried that if her crying always leads him to trade off with me, that we will get stuck in a backwards problem of what we had with Ben. (For newer folks, though Ben was nursing, he would not go to sleep for me from age 8-9 months until after age 2! It was crazy, I would nurse him and then Stephen would go in and he would cry forever, sometimes several hours before he finally slept, and believe me, we read all the books and tried EVERYTHING we could think of to change it)
Anyway, I hate putting Alli to bed so much, I would throw myself from the window if I was the only one who could do it :-(
Also, whoever said "trust me, she wants to nurse more than she wants to pull your hair" has clearly never met my special snowflake of a daughter.
If I stop her from pulling my hair, by either taking it out of her hand or holding her hand down so she can't get to it, she UNLATCHES HERSELF (so there goes the idea of popping her off every time she goes for my hair) and screams like I'm assassinating her. She absolutely 100 percent would rather play with my hair than nurse. She will go to sleep not nursing if I let her have the hair, but she will NOT go to sleep nursing with no hair. I have mostly given up and am just focusing on teaching her "Gentle with Mama's hair, gentle!" because with a lot of work and reminding and modeling, I can at least get her to stop trying to rip it from my scalp. Sometimes.
I am really nervous to crack down about the nursing thing though. If I withheld nursing because of the hair, she would be weaned and STILL miserable because she'd still want my hair.
Thank goodness, the crying seems to have died down. I can still hear them, I know she isn't sleeping, but at least she isn't trying to wake the dead anymore. My poor eardrums were really taking a beating. :-(
edit i spoke too soon. 10 p.m. is fast approaching and she is still crying. i can hear him working hard in there to soothe her, he is crooning and singing and rocking and she quiets down for a bit and then starts back up again :-(
So I said to him, I haven't put Ben to bed in eons, I've been the one to put Alli down for the last ????? and he said OK, no problem.
Well, I can hear her screaming and screaming and screaming and I don't know what to do. Her teeth hurt, and being with me isn't going to make them not hurt. I'm worried that if her crying always leads him to trade off with me, that we will get stuck in a backwards problem of what we had with Ben. (For newer folks, though Ben was nursing, he would not go to sleep for me from age 8-9 months until after age 2! It was crazy, I would nurse him and then Stephen would go in and he would cry forever, sometimes several hours before he finally slept, and believe me, we read all the books and tried EVERYTHING we could think of to change it)
Anyway, I hate putting Alli to bed so much, I would throw myself from the window if I was the only one who could do it :-(
Also, whoever said "trust me, she wants to nurse more than she wants to pull your hair" has clearly never met my special snowflake of a daughter.
If I stop her from pulling my hair, by either taking it out of her hand or holding her hand down so she can't get to it, she UNLATCHES HERSELF (so there goes the idea of popping her off every time she goes for my hair) and screams like I'm assassinating her. She absolutely 100 percent would rather play with my hair than nurse. She will go to sleep not nursing if I let her have the hair, but she will NOT go to sleep nursing with no hair. I have mostly given up and am just focusing on teaching her "Gentle with Mama's hair, gentle!" because with a lot of work and reminding and modeling, I can at least get her to stop trying to rip it from my scalp. Sometimes.
I am really nervous to crack down about the nursing thing though. If I withheld nursing because of the hair, she would be weaned and STILL miserable because she'd still want my hair.
Thank goodness, the crying seems to have died down. I can still hear them, I know she isn't sleeping, but at least she isn't trying to wake the dead anymore. My poor eardrums were really taking a beating. :-(
edit i spoke too soon. 10 p.m. is fast approaching and she is still crying. i can hear him working hard in there to soothe her, he is crooning and singing and rocking and she quiets down for a bit and then starts back up again :-(