More sleep training

I went and tried the sleep training again. This time, it worked better. Last night, she was put to bed at 8 and woke at 10 and midnight. Then she slept until 7:30, when my son woke her. Unfortunately, my son woke up at 1 and I didn't get back to sleep until 2am, but I still got a nice 5 1/2 hours of uninterrupted sleep. And I got to do a bit of reading... something that I've missed since she was born.

Today, we're sticking around home because both kids have colds and it's snowing. I didn't feel like working so hard to get them out. What's the etiquette when your kids have colds, anyway? Do you still take them out? My kids got their colds from someone who didn't keep their kids at home.. so I keep them home for a week until they're better and then go out for 3 days (how long it takes for symptoms to appear) and repeat?

They've got runny noses and my son has a mild cough in the evenings. No fever, no crazy green stuff coming out of his nose. Just clear runny noses. No changes in behavior. They're both still active and eating well. I'm not that worried about them when other kids around them are sick. It seems like if you keep kids home when they're sick, you're going to be home a lot. Kids are constantly sick, right? I had taken them out yesterday to a parenting group and (maybe it was my guilty conscious, but) it felt like the person doing childcare wasn't impressed. It was probably me feeling guilty. What childcare person doesn't accept the fact that children are sick for most of the time? They're kids. They share toys, they touch their faces, they eat from each other's plates.

Sleep training

We tried the sleep training, but it was a disaster. We held strong and she eventually fell asleep in her crib. And woke an hour later. Again, we did the same thing. Again, she work after an hour. By this time, 4 hours had passed and I was getting really tired. I also felt really bad because we were sleep training her at 6 months, whereas we didn't sleep train my son until he was over a year old. So after she woke again, I just took her to bed with me.

When we used sleep training on my son, it wasn't so bad. He was over a year old and no longer nursing. Both my husband and I were tired of having him sleep with us because he would kick us throughout the night. So we were all ready to have him move to a crib. He cried a lot of the first night, but by the third night, he had accepted that the crib was the place where he'd be sleeping. It's been fairly smooth ever since.

With my daughter, there are a number of issues. She's just over 6 months, so she's still quite young. She's still nursing. She's getting better at eating solids, but it will be a while before she derives a majority of her calories from solids. She's very attached to her soother. And she's got a cold right now. And I hadn't realized that she had a cold, so I got her immunized, so she's suffering from a fever, too. It doesn't sound like now would be a good time to start the sleep training. While I'd really like to get a full nights' sleep, I'm not convinced that I'll get that even if she were sleep trained.

Last night was worse than usual. I went to bed with her at 11pm. She had been napping in her crib. At 1am, my son woke up and was crying. Soothing him took about 30 minutes. Then, another 15 minutes to sooth my daughter back to sleep. I lost track of time at this point because I was so tired, but I woke up another 2 or 3 times between 2-6am. At 6am, my son and my niece woke up and were running around the house. My sister slept over, so she entertained the two older kids and I woke up an hour later at 7. Wow.. that's not a lot of sleep.

Attachment

It's been very different this time around. My second child is much more attached to me than my first ever was. I'm not sure if it's a boy/girl or firstborn/subsequent child thing. On the one hand, it's provided me with a level of baby adoration that I never had with my first. Sorry, you can't be ga-ga over a baby when it hurts every time you feed the little dear. Even then, I still have fond memories of my son.

So my little one is 6 months old. She doesn't seem too interested in solids so I've been trying, but I haven't been pushing it. I only weigh her when she gets her immunization or when she goes to see a doctor, so I'm not exactly sure how much she weighs. My arm/shoulder hurts more than it did a month ago, so I suspect that she's putting on weight just fine.

I had been considering sleep-training her before Christmas. My husband felt bad for my son because he's the only one who has to sleep alone and he didn't want my son to feel like he's been singled out. As well, we only have the 2 bedrooms on the main floor, so my daughter's crib is out in the living room. The plan is that we'll sleep train her in the living room and once she's sleeping most of the night, we'll move her into the room with her brother.

When we used sleep training on my son, the situation was pretty intense. He was sleeping with us and would wake up every 3 hours to kick someone, not intentionally, but it still hurts to get kicked. Not only that, but he insisted on sleeping on people.. his father in particular. So that's how we slept for over a year. My husband finally had enough and decided to sleep train my son. It wasn't bad. The first night was bad, but after that it's been fine. Even when we moved him to a toddler bed, he was fine. He was definitely ready to sleep on his own when we started the sleep training.

My daughter is a different story. She's 6 months and seems so small. She's so attached to me and I'm not sure whether I'm ready to risk losing that attachment. She's never slept very well on her own. Some nights, I'm ready to sleep train her, but other nights, it's not so bad. I know that if I wait until I reach the end of my rope, that's likely not going to happen. My daughter lets me sleep 4-5 hours at a stretch if I'm with her. That's enough sleep to keep me going and not drive me insane.

Postpartum depression

I went through (am going through) some mild postpartum depression. I suspect that many mom's go through it, too, but perhaps don't recognize the symptoms. I was lucky enough to have someone tell me a bit about it and to admit that she went through it, so I was more open to admitting that I had the symptoms.

I went to a drop-in today and another mom (who I had been acquainted with during my previous maternity leave) was going through something similar. It's nice to have someone to talk to.. even if you don't get any solutions or plans-of-action. It's nice to know that you're not completely alone.

For me, the PPD partially stems from a feeling of distance between me and my husband. Another part was the lack of sleep and lack of exercise. And of course, top all of this with feelings of isolation. But, like network troubleshooting, finding out what the problem is more than half the work. When stigma is added to the mix, people tend to brush off their feelings instead of dealing with them.