Next week Carolina turns 1. One. How the fuck did that happen? I mean, seriously, the girl is still such a baby at times (can you say unexpected 4 a.m. feeding?) and yet, she's not. She's really becoming a little toddler and it's almost like the changes are speeding up and every day she looks bigger or more sure footed. Don't worry, Grandma, she's not actually walking yet. My mother did ask outright if she'd missed that milestone since I seem to be posting more than phoning these days. But no. She's close though. I really thought it might be before her birthday, but I bet it won't be much longer. And all of this brings up the changes we are about to embark on regarding moving Carolina into Elisa's room and transitioning her off formula to milk. And maybe, just maybe switching to sippy cups for everything and throwing all the bottles away. Too soon? Well, the room switch can't happen fast enough, but somehow every day I find a reason to delay it. The real kicker is that their bedtimes are just not aligned very well most of the time because Elisa is still napping. And do I really want to push that? Hmmm. Up until now, I've voted no because most days I can pretty well synchronize their naps and then I have almost 2 hours of freetime to myself to clean up, regroup, grab a cup of tea and sit down for a while. Sometimes even nap. It's heavenly. And I know it. But the fact that I still put up with a baby sleeping 4 feet from my head every night is the downside. Even though Carolina is in her crib and sleeps a solid 10-11 hours most nights, her proximity to my bed is still problematic. I hear her. And I'm pretty sure she hears us. Which means that there are lots of little stirrings when we come into the room around 11 p.m. And god forbid I should have to get up to pee around 4 a.m. I'm so afraid of the creaks our bed makes that I try to hover over it weightlessly as I move to get up and out, but usually it fails (damn, gravity!). My nighttime movements almost always prompts a sigh or a thump from Carolina's corner, which may or may not wake her up to the point of needing some intervention. It's nothing horrible, but man, I live for the day I can rollover or get up to pee in peace.
And of course the move to Elisa's room will also mean a general shifting of her space and hopefully that goes well. I think she's excited about having her sister in her room and will probably do fine with the sleeping part. Elisa has many quirks, but generally, she's a terrific sleeper. She stays in her bed and hasn't had nearly as many night wakings or screaming fits this year as before. So I'm hopeful that she'll learn to ignore Carolina's mumblings and maybe we can all rest easier. We've discussed that sucking her thumb and holding on to her burp rag is going to have to stop soon. Actually, we keep saying after she turns 4 she'll have to give those up. But who knows. I realize that with so many of the changes we've faced as parents, it's been more about our readiness than Elisa's. Like the switch to the big girl bed and giving up the bottle at age 3, it wasn't so much about her as it was about my willingness to tough it out. And by that time, it wasn't so bad. So I'm mentally stewing on all of these things once again and trying to prep myself for the next battle. And just like always, I feel like I'm taking longer than I should to do some of this stuff, but somehow it will work out and I'll forget that I ever debated so much. That's just my nature, I guess. I like dissecting and working things out in my head well before I have to take action and then when the dust settles I feel great. It's such a clearing out of the cobwebs in my brain. So off we go. I know that the next month will be busy with the birthdays and our trip to Spain. I'm just hoping that somewhere in there we teach these girls to cohabitate and then the slow process of buying back some "me" time (reading in bed! being able to hang out in my room whenever I want!) will continue. I have no doubt this next year is going to be even better than the last one. But first, I have to get crackin'.
2 comments:
Not sure of your floorplan or if our solution would work in your home, but we faced a similar issue when we moved the girls into the same room: I still wanted both to nap, but not necessarily for the same duration, plus it seemed that while it was not so hard to transition them to room sharing at night, that it would be harder to convince them both to sleep together in the same room in the middle of the day. Our solution? They were roomies at night, but for naps, Georgia napped (*naps*, I should say, b/c she still does sometimes) in our bed, in our bedroom. This just meant me having to remember to get anything out beforehand that I might need, turn off phone in there, etc. To me it was worth the temporary sacrifice of that room to get the down time in my day.
As for the transition to them becoming roommates, I sort of have experience with that and I sort of don't, because ours was not a situation where June was going directly from parents' room to sibling's room. So, I don't know if my words will hold true for you, but all I can say is expect it to be a little rocky at first, but never fear because they will quickly get into a new bedtime routine groove.
Okay, and now this last part is even more unsolicited opinion giving, but here goes: why would you push the giving up of thumb sucking and lovie/rag holding? I am a hardass about a lot of things, but I think that whatever soothes them goes when it comes to sleeping. And everyone says it screws with teeth, but (a) I don't buy it (plus my father in law dentist said not to worry about that), and (b) I'd rather pay for braces than deal with a cranky overtired preschooler! : ) Chances are she'll naturally give it all up of her own accord someday anyway, but if that's not until she's 5, 6, or 7 (or more?), who really cares if she's only doing it while trying to go to sleep? (I guess I have a different standard for "out and about" -- I used to tell G no finger sucking until it was nap/bedtime. Then again, June is such an ardent finger sucker that I haven't even attempted to start that with her. I feel like there is no point in trying! Or maybe my heart isn't in that fight.)
Kate, ALL unsolicited advice is welcome! Seriously. I'm totally convinced that the bedtime thing will fall into place once we give it a few weeks. It has to, right? But the build up is what's killing me. I just want to do it already and then I stop and think why am I so anxious? I guess I'm still not sure if I need to put some kind of divider (like we used in our old 1 bedrm apt) between the girls. We have it, just have to rearrange the room and move some very heavy furniture (which is why I haven't done it myself already). And yes, I assume that one of them will be napping in our room either Elisa in our bed or Carolina in the pack n play. I keep thinking it's going to be hard to keep Elisa out of her room during naps, so I've been leaning towards keeping the pack n play handy. But ugh, that's a pain too. All I really know is that with every transition there are trade offs. I'm just hoping in another 2 months I look back at all this with a laugh.
And you're totally right about the thumb sucking/rag holding. I'm not really dying to get rid of it, but I am starting to talk it up. Elisa definitely still needs those calming tools when she gets upset and/or tired, but hopefully we will be able to at least leave it to bedtime. Right now, the rag has to accompany us out of the house (though she stopped taking it to preschool) and god forbid we don't have it when she's tired. It can be a difficult thing if it's forgotten/lost. But little by little, she's getting better, so the idea is that hopefully she picks the time to drop it. Her teeth are already shaped around her finger unfortunately, so braces here we come! No real reason to try to un-do the damage. So we are riding it out. But can't hurt to start the letting go now! Thanks again for your input. And stay tuned!
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