Saturday, July 10, 2010

Tough while Traveling

If I haven't mentioned it before, Cdubs is an amazing traveler.  She finally has tackled that little issue of thinking her carseat is going to kill her (and its cohort, the stroller).  She takes naps on the road and finds new people fascinating and doesn't mind being in one seat for a long time (as long as it is on someone's lap).

But once at our destination, the poor thing has some trouble adjusting.  She doesn't seem to understand why the 24 hour feeding fest should stop, why mom can't hold her continually, why she should play with things on the ground.  We have had almost 8 weeks now of interrupted sleep and crazy schedules.  The past two nights have been a reintroduction of scheduling.  Including (do not yell at me), Crying it Out at night.

She usually goes to bed nicely (if she nurses almost to sleep--we are trying to break that).  Sometimes she can go down more awake and listen to her music toy or she just cries for 5-10 minutes.   Then, a few hours later she may wake up and cry for a bit.  Sometimes she can flip herself back over and go to sleep...other times, we go in and flip her and rub her back.  Picking her up, we have learned, does no good.  So now, we check on her...if rubbing her back is useless we just let her cry.

It hasn't been perfect but I am hoping that within a week or two, she will be able to sleep through the night again.

Our introduction to solids has taken a backseat while traveling.  So we are back to square one: rice cereal and veggies (this week: peas).  She got incredibly constipated right before we left the US and I wasn't sure if it was the carrots or something else that caused it, but we are going back to 1 veggie/fruit a week and monitoring its effects.

If you have any tips on introducing solids or helping with sleep.  I'd be really appreciative.

4 comments:

E said...

Crying it out is fine. You know my parenting style. Yes, going in and picking them up tends to prolong the crying it out process. You're doing great. Just let her fuss it up and the time she does will shorten each night.

amanda said...

you know crying it out is totally fine. totally. and trust me, it's harder on us than them. promise.

as for the food fun...it's all just trial and error. and just when you think you have it figured out, they will change their minds :)

but can i just tell you that all of it is sooo worth it bc this little love is going to have picture albums full of her in all these amazing places!! soak it up friend :)

Pages' Page said...

I can't get over those dimples! She is precious! You're doing a great job being a mommy. You guys are rock stars for all of the traveling that you've done with her. I can imagine that a schedule now would be hard for her. Crying it out is hard, but you just have to do it. There's nothing wrong with that. Have you tried a white noise machine? That's what Spencer's humidifier has become. We turn it on all the time now because the noise really helps her (and it blocks out some of our own noise so that we don't wake her up).

The Mrs. said...

lets see as far as food and sleep.... my son doesnt so much as nap and he's in eating therapy soooooo I'm thinking I'm not the best to be giving out advice.

And in case anyone is reading this and laughing, eating therapy, ahhahhha I'm not kidding. Its real. Sigh. This is my life now.