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.