Preparing

So, aside from soon having a newborn to care for, I can't help but think how I'm going to take care of baby #1... who will be roughly 20-21 month old when she becomes a big sister. We have a few issues that I would not only like to rectify before my mother has to watch her on her own for a few days, but also to make life easier when it's my job.

Issue #1 - bedtime. We had things in a good place, it would roughly take 5-10 minutes of rocking/singing before Angela was relaxed and we could lay her on her bed (awake, mind you) and she'd go to sleep without issue. It was so easy, that I started having John put her down for bed more often than me... which then morphed into John lying next to her and falling asleep on the floor with her. This then led to her demanding that he lie next to her before she fell asleep, and then... she wanted me to do the same. A 5-10 minute thing turned into 45-60. This also seemed to coincide with her waking up more often during the night and needing us to rock her back to sleep, and I was becoming concerned that the two were related.

 I realized I could not do this to my mother, and last Friday night did a little CIO with Angela - she was mad to be sure, I left for 10 minutes, went in,  held her, sang to her, told her it was night-night, and walked out. She cried for 15 more minutes and then started standing up in bed (that was a new one)... went back in, checked on her, and walked out. But after a few more minutes of her crying after that I could see John felt sad for her (as was I), so I went back in and rubbed her back & stayed with her until she was pretty much entirely asleep - which didn't take more than 5 or so minutes. I was afraid that by doing so I was undoing the whole point of CIO - to teach her to fall asleep on her own without us in the room. The next night my parents were over and I didn't want to have them spend the evening with me running back and forth into her room, so I tried to stay in the room with her until she was asleep - but again, she was giving me a hard time and really wanted me to lie with her - which I didn't want to do. After a half-hour I tried to leave - she sat up and I firmly told her it was night-night time and that she had to go to sleep. She let out two little cries but did put her head down and went to sleep on her own. I'm hoping tonight goes a little bit easier and I can gradually get back to our old routine without much crying.

Now, nap time is another issue. She has never been a good napper and although she goes down pretty easily these days, she can also take her nap a lot later if I let her. Within 10 minutes of rocking she is out like a light and I can lay her down and leave the room. The problem however, is that generally within 45 minutes she wakes up and needs to be put back to sleep, and then 20-45 minutes after that - same thing, and 20 minutes after that she generally wakes up or will be rocked back to sleep again and wake up shortly later. This leaves me constantly looking over at the baby monitor and afraid to do anything that I can't walk away from (a shower, a necessary phone call etc). So, now I am focusing on putting more of an effort into letting her fall asleep on her own during nap time (although, past history has shown she puts up more of a fight during nap time when I've attempted to do this - and I've been told by a sleep consultant that nap time is harder regarding sleep training and CIO isn't always going to work). I definitely do not want to be in the middle of a diaper change or nursing session and have to somehow run back upstairs to try to put Angela back to sleep.

If I can resolve those two issues, I'll feel a lot less stressed. And aside from all that, my main concern is to tackle her pickiness at meal time. A 100% fruit diet is not an option, Angela!