WAS WRONG.

Lucy is going through separation anxiety plus trying to figure out all her emotions and learning how she can get what she wants without having a vocabulary.  It is kicking my butt.  What happened to my happy smiley baby? Sure she’s still happy and smiley alot of the time but she’s starting to throw tantrums and cry and not sleep.  It’s hard.  It’s really hard.  I guess I deserve it.  I had such an easy go of it and now it’s not so easy.  She’s also getting to be more fun-it’s weird.  Her little personality is emerging and we can play with her and know what makes her giggle and get her sense of humor but at the same time if we do something she doesn’t like (like take away the remote or my watch or the keyboard) she throws a tizzy fit.  We don’t give in but then there’s the sleep issue.  Sometimes she just doesn’t want to go to sleep and she’s screams and cries.  What do we do then?  I have never been a fan of the “cry it out” method but I was desperate the other night and tried it.  I let her cry for 5 minutes and then went in there to soothe her.  They tell you to not pick them up but to rather rub their backs and speak gently to them.  When she realized that I wasn’t going to pick her up she got PISSED and started wailing and then choking/gagging.  Of course I picked her up.  Oh and she doesn’t want Daddy through all of this.  If he tries to soothe her and rock her she flails her body, tries to hit him, and screams like someone is hurting her.  It’s exhausting. It took us 2 hours to get her down that night.

Last night she went down without a fight at 7:30 but then woke up at 9:30.  I nursed her and tried to put her back down but she did not want to go to sleep and started screaming.  I tried to soothe her for about 20 minutes but every time I would make a move to put her in the crib she’d start screaming.  Well, I was running on 3 hours of sleep and was tired so I brought her into bed with me and she slept on my chest (after screaming while laying on my chest for 15 minutes) until about midnight (I think?) At that point I put her in her crib.  She woke up at 5 to nurse and started fighting the crib again so I brought her into bed with me again.  Thus giving her exactly what she wanted BUT Mommy needs to sleep!

I know that this is a stage and that it will pass but it is just really hard.  Really, really hard.  I hope it passes quickly.