Bedtime

Bedtime has become a nightmare, a disaster. I look forward to bedtime like I'd look forward to having bamboo chutes shoved under my fingernails. Kylie falls asleep just fine on her own for naps during the day. I lay her down while she is still awake, she fusses for a minute, and then falls asleep. Bedtime is a whole other story. First, she doesn't want to go to bed until 9:30 pm/10:00 pm, which would be fine if I didn't have so much homework to do after I finally get her to bed. She fights me if I try to rock her, and she screams and cries if I lay her down. I usually let her cry for several minutes, then go pick her up and rock her until she is almost asleep, lay her back down in the crib, and she falls asleep after fussing for a couple of minutes. Most of the time, though, this process can take 30-45 minutes because she reverts back to screaming when I lay her back down in the crib after rocking her instead of just fussing a little bit and falling asleep. Then, I start homework after she has been asleep for about 10 minutes. I usually don't finish until midnight (or close to it), and I immediately go to bed. Kylie wakes up, on average, about 8 times each night. Some nights she wakes up just once or twice but most nights, she wakes up A LOT. She doesn't have an ear infection; I just took her to the doctor yesterday because she was tugging at her ear but he said she just has a lot of wax and it's probably itching. Anyway, I know the move rocked her little world but it has been over a month. I know it can't still be affecting her this much. She wakes up most mornings between 7:30 am and 8:00 am, which I guess could be considered "late" for a baby but after not going to sleep until midnight or later and waking up so many times during the night, I am ALWAYS exhausted. I usually nap when she does either in the morning or afternoon. And during her other nap, I get ready, clean, etc. It's just not feasible for me to do homework during the day unless I skip taking a nap, and I just can't do that these days. And frankly, even if I spent one of her entire nap times doing homework, I still wouldn't finish because she doesn't nap long enough. I just really wish I knew why she was waking up so much. Her sleeping environment is pretty much the same as it was in California, except now we share a room. I realized today that what she sleeps in is also different. In California, she slept in footie pajamas. It's really just too hot for her to sleep in those here so she has been sleeping in just a onesie or a t-shirt. So I started wondering if maybe she has been waking up so much because she is cold because she has kicked the blanket off of her. Tonight, she is sleeping in a long-sleeved onesie and a pair of pants. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that she sleeps better. I guess I should also mention that she sleeps with a "blankie." Out of nowhere, she got really attached to one of her blankets so she sleeps and cuddles with it every night.

Ok, she has been asleep for about 30 minutes, and we are on wake-up #1.

:/