Butterfly's Birthday

Lilypie Fifth Birthday tickers

Thursday 4 November 2010

Butterfly* just peed (in a bowl of course! icon of proud mama), 22:30 as expected. Usually she goes straight back to sleep, but not this time. She was turning restlessly from side to side, and I stood for a moment wondering what to do.
As you might recall, I had a hard time getting her to sleep. Then I heard this lecture and things began to change (plus I added a dummy for the night). The point of this method is that you teach baby to fall asleep in bed, by themselves. All the things we do to get them to sleep just creats an addiction which makes it harder and harder to satisfy. So at first you sit near and touch, and then you slowly go further, until you put baby to bed and go out the door. Well I have a problem here. Two actually. First we co-sleep, both of us in one big bed, she being near the wall. When I put her to sleep, oh does she toss and turn and turn and wiggle and do some crawling forward and backwards and just doesn't sit still until she finally decides to lay her pretty little head down and fall asleep. So you can understand that I can't really leave the room.. (plus everytime the dummy falls I have to put it back in her mouth). Second is that we do EC. I expect a pee withing about half an hour of going to sleep (as she was fed before). If I am looking for signs, I can't really leave the room.
Anyway point is I am going by this method but only to a certain extent. Oh and I only do it for going to sleep. At night I breastfeed her to sleep and so in the day (or so I try. Twice I had her sleeping this morning, and twice the moment I moved her eyes were wide open and no way would she sleep, urg..). They do say you have to be presistent and do it every time she wakes up. But really, I am hardly able to breastfeed her during the day, so at least we have the nights..

So I was standing by the bed for a moment wondering if I should do this method, or else to get her to sleep. And you know, while I don't want my girl to be addicted to me and my presence for sleeping, I do not want to train my 4.5 month little girl to be independent. I think co-sleeping goes very much against that. They say tell you to teach child how to put dummy in mouth so you don't have to get up, but you know what, it is just a hand reach for me [we breastfeed, and at one point, after she's already sleeping but still chewing sucking on me, I switch to a dummy..]. She has a lifetime ahead of her for the independent stuff. Now let her enjoy babyhood.

* why The Girl, of course! Had a name for her while pregnant, but then had a change of heart. Was thinking thinking of a nick for her but couldn't come up with anything. Then sitting on our activity (or is it playing) mat nursing her and again thinking how to call her here, my eyes fell on the blues butterfly on the hippo's nose, and.... it was a bear and a butterfly I asked my sister to draw for me long time ago. So Butterfly she is! (except she is so not as light as a butterfly..)

2 comments:

Tiara said...

I think every parenting theory can be adjusted to fit your needs...in the same way that no 2 pregnancies are the same, neither are any 2 babies...it sounds to me like you & Butterfly are doing great!

P.S. I love the new nick...it seems so fitting!

Jess said...

Awww, cute Nickname! and I agree with Tiara.