I am so tired right now. Waking up at odd hours several nights in a row will do that to you (thank you, two youngest children). So, if my words become incomprehensible, well, I’m blaming lack of sleep…or more like interrupted sleep which to me might as well mean crazy sleep deprivation.
4am this morning. Lydia starts crying, not the kind of crying you can hope just quiets on its own. I mean, screaming crying, calling our names, “I’m 100% awake” kind of crying. For the third night in a row, I somehow managed to remove myself from our bed to go in there. And, I wasn’t happy about it.
I wanted her to stop. crying.
“want Mama’s bed, want Daddy’s bed. No crib.”
And, I just didn’t want to do it. For all those cosleepers out there…bless you. It’s not for me. The only person I’m cosleeping with is the one I married.
I knew it would make her fall right back asleep and quit the crying that somehow seems like it’s a 12 on a scale of 1 to 10 when it’s at 4am. It worked all the other nights.
But, I just didn’t want to do it. again. and then again and again. I see what’s happening here. I changed her, held for a few seconds, put her back in her crib crying, and made her a little warm bottle. And, then left her in there while I went back to bed.
A few minutes later, she was quiet.
But, right away, my thoughts were not–did I do the right thing? If she’s crying to come be with us, should I have let her? What kind of message am I sending? Should I have laid on her floor next to her for a while until she was quiet? Did I just reinforce anti attachment thinking? Did I mess this up?
It’ll be 2 years in April since she’s been home with us. And, I’m overthinking about when I won’t be overthinking attachment stuff. When can I just be and not have to worry about damaging effects on our attachment or sending the wrong message?
…
She woke up happy, totally fine, totally attached this morning…though her interrupted sleep seems to have caused her to be overly exhausted for her nap this afternoon which led me to put her down crying…again…
I am with youvkelly .. No co sleeping. Izabella has always slept in her room without us.. In her own bed. But we do always stay with her until she’s asleep. But every once in a while she makes her way into our room and climbs in bed with us. Each time we let her snuggle a little then take her back to her own room. Lately, she has been sick and we did sleep in there with her tending her fever..and more coming into our room at night. We had a little talk befote she drifted off to sllep.. With heaps of reassuance of our love and her safety. Whalla-this morning we awoke and realized she had spent the entire night iagape bed! Yeah! And the best part.. She was proud of herself this morning too. She said, “I didn’t need mommy and daddy last night mommy!” sometimes I noticed she just needs a little extra assurance – like you, we wish we wonder if we will ever not need to worry. She reminds us.. Nope it will always be there…and so will we.
Wow I have been living the exact same thing for 3 weeks now. Jillian has never been a good sleeper with us ( we have had her for a year) I will not her in bed with us… And it’s a different cry.. Wailing almost… If it were my older daughter ( from scratch , not adopted from china) I would let her cry it out.. But nothing seems typical with a non typical child… Second guessing everything or as you put it over thinking .. And on very very little sleep ever night… I’ve done the laying on the floor… Now I sing to her out her in the crib and then put on light on in closet, plus night light , rub her head then say goodnight but I always promise to check on her and she holds up her little finger and says “ack”. ( back ) which I then do for the next hour Hoping that I did my part so that I’m not causing her to revisit memories of abandonment from the orphanage … Or anti attachment… Sooo hard I’m right there with you, all night long while she wakes, sleeps while I try to fall asleep again .. Always worring , I’ve even apologized to her that there was. Nobody there to hold her cuddle her when she was tiny… She seems happy when she wakes up in the morning… Oh how I wish there was no such thing as overthinking….. You said it well
I am with you on this. We are only ten months into this with an older child, but I am also constantly wondering which behavior or cry is about attachment and which is just the fact that she is a four-year-old child. It’s hard. (Oh and we’re tired around here too. I’ll be glad when Miss Maggs sleeps through the night again.) I hope you have a restful night!
I’m not a co-sleeper either. (This single girl likes a bed all to herself. My 4 year old usually shows up in my bed at some point in the wee hours; I let her stay only because I have no will power to carry her back.) It’s hard to know what is an attachment issue, but this just sounds like regular old kid stuff. When Mia does this, I go with the theory of diminishing reinforcement. First time to bed: books, love, all that. Next time you get out: a kiss, a bit of love. 3rd time: not much from mom, just a quick tuck in. 4th time: (I’m pretty annoyed by now) no words, just marched back into bed. You get the idea.
We’ve been home 7 years now, and it still crops up on a regular basis. I don’t run through the gamut like this every single day anymore, but there are weeks at a time where it IS daily.
We’ve been home 7 years now, and I still have stretches of time when I go through this on a regular basis. It’s not daily, 12 months a year anymore, but it crops up more often than I expected originally.
Oh Kelly, do I have a little co-sleeper cartoon for you (HA!) I just about posted it yesterday but waited for fear I’d be shunned for not being a co-sleeper supporter. Well, I say that and as my post will support, we’ve gotten slack. I will post it later today.
Praying that your little one will soon sleep through the night and that you can be reassured that you have done the right thing in establishing a regular routine of “her” area and that she is safe and secure right there … and that you’ll always come to her rescue to check on her and make sure she is fine … and also in the morning you’ll be there always for her. Wow, adoption has so many fine lines and areas where there can be over-thinking. ack!
Hugs (and get a nap!)
Valerie
Our daughter used to suffer from night terrors. I did not realize that she was not awake with her eyes open and the screaming until I stood her up one time, and she “woke up” and stopped the screaming. It was terrible to witness, but she never remembered them at all. Once I realized what they were, I just reassured her and made sure she was safe until it ended. Because she shared a room and I feared that she would wake her sister, I did take her to my room most of the time. I found by accident (all my good parenting ideas came by accident) that if I let my kids sleep in my bed once a week, they usually forgot that they could and rarely did it. However, my husband worked nights at the time, so one little one in my queen size bed with me was not such a big deal.