Risty's Diary (Christina)

overtherainbow - I can't co-sleep... I sleep bad enough as it is. When the baby is with me, I just can't sleep. So I only did it once in a while when they were newborn. Sleep training was the best thing I did with my first daughter. Her sleep was HORRIBLE! My second daughter, her sleep isn't that much better (except naps, her naps are great).

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I haven't had much time to come on the past couple days. By the time it gets to the end of the night I just don't want to do anything. I've been squeezing in my exercise during the day whenever I can. When the baby naps and hopefully my toddler too. I found the best time (if they don't have their first nap at the same time) is during the baby's 2nd nap and my hubby is home to entertain the toddler. The one day he wasn't home and I had her do it with me, she was all excited at first and lost interest pretty quick. It wasn't easy to exercise with her in there. Still got it done though.

So right now it's 3:23 am and I've been awake since 12:30. The baby woke, I fed her, put her down, 15 mins later she woke, I fed her, bounced her a few mins, put her back down. She started crying some more... by this time is was 1 am. Then I was finally like, ok, that's it! I'm sleep training! I can't do this anymore. So I told her it was time to sleep, put her blanket on and left (like how I do at naptime, and she's fine at naptime....go figure!) Well she screamed and cried hard. I waited 15 mins, then went back in, layed her back down a few times (she kept popping back up crying) and I was shushing her and telling her it was time to sleep and left. Then she screamed and cried for another 5 mins. It got quiet, and I thought, finally! But no, she's been alternating being quiet, to crying, to compaining/talking, to screaming, then back to silence, then more crying, more talking, more screaming etc. So I don't bloody know whether to go in and lay her back down, or leave her. If i go in, it really upsets her. But she's just going on and on. She finally got quiet (for good I think) at 3:15 am. That was long freaking 2 hours. My first daughter when I trained her, slept even worse, but gave up sooner! And she's a bloody stubborn little girl! So I was surprised that it took so long for my other baby to calm down :(

My toddler woke twice (the first time was at the same time as the baby, so they both were at it).... that may have been part of the reason I snapped and did an impromptu sleep training. The second time she woke, I'm guessing was because of the baby's crying. My toddler, if she wakes, is 99% only one time at night... so yeah, probably the baby that woke her.

I feel like the WORST person ever. I hate sleep training, I hate hate hate it. I hate my baby crying, I hate how I'm the one making her cry. I hate how I can stop the crying but I'm not. I know in the long run, it'll be better for her and I to sleep through the night, but the training process is horrible.

I feel sick to my stomach, I've cried, I came on here because I had to distract myself somehow! I made myself some camomile tea to see if it'll help with my stomach. I hope she doesn't wake up again until morning, I don't want to go through it again. I hope it doesn't take too many days before she learns to go back to sleep on her on at night. It took my first daughter 1 night, and then 4 days for naps. Well this daughter has the naps down already, so hopefully she learns quick for night time. Seeing how tonight went, I'm not so sure....

I'm so stressed over this, and trying to lose weight, and trying to get extra stuff done that I want to do but have no time, and wanting to organize my bloody house because it's cluttered and I hate clutter! It all feels so overwhelming.
 
Last night was horrible. After she went to sleep at 3:15 she woke at 4:30, cried for 10 mins and went back to sleep. Then she woke at 5:50 and cried for 10 mins and went to sleep. She woke just after 8 which I'm sure is due to get sister's tantrum! I'm so in a bad mood today!Plus I gained a pound! !!!! I hope it's from added muscle. Or maybe the 8 lbs in two weeks was to much. I hope this week is better.
 
Aww poor you and baby. It will get better slowly. If you have decided to sleep train stick with it otherwise it'll be worse later. :hug2: it is not easy.
 
angel - Yeah for sure! Once I start, that's it. I don't want to confuse her or make her think if she cries long enough I will give in. I know she's not hungry because she is a good weight and is gaining fine! So she's just using me to get herself back to sleep.

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I was wrong!!! I'm the same weight as last week, phew! All it took was nursing the baby and going to the bathroom, haha!
 
Oh I remember those crying baby nights. My first son was not a good sleeper, and we were too soft. I would be standing over the crib, patting him on the back, half asleep myself. The instant I would stop patting, he would start crying. We finally made him tough it out and after a bad week, he got to where the crying was very short. My second son was a great sleepy head. If he hadn't been we probably wouldn't have had my daughter! If it makes you feel better , when they are teenagers, you won't be able to wake em up!
 
Hope baby's sleep gets better soon!
I have co-slept with all of mine and I admit it, I still do. I go to bed when they do, we all sleep in the same room and they take turns sleeping in my bed. Sometimes I fall a sleep other times I get up again, but it can be as much as 1½ hours in bed before the last one falls asleep. So time consuming, but at least it has meant that they hardly ever have woken up at night.
I have started putting them to bed and leaving the door open and stay in the living room, they can do that too (mostly) and I do that when I have loads of work.
I was told always to do what is working for the children and that every family is different. Co-sleeping and going to bed early makes one miss out on lots of stuff, there was a couple of years where I never sat on the couch or turned on the TV or my laptop, but I was more or less pregnant 3 years in a row and tired enough to pass out at 7.30 pm LOL
 
brawny77 said:
Oh I remember those crying baby nights. My first son was not a good sleeper, and we were too soft. I would be standing over the crib, patting him on the back, half asleep myself. The instant I would stop patting, he would start crying. We finally made him tough it out and after a bad week, he got to where the crying was very short. My second son was a great sleepy head. If he hadn't been we probably wouldn't have had my daughter! If it makes you feel better , when they are teenagers, you won't be able to wake em up!
Click to expand...

Isn't that when your supposed to wake them up first thing in the morning on weekends to get revenge lol.

When I was a teenager, I didn't like waking up to an alarm so my Dad would come knock on my door and tell me it was time to get up. What a guy :D Total Daddy's girl here
 
brawny - Yeah I always go with what the baby wants up to a certain age and then when it gets close to going back to work I do the sleep training because I need my sleep. I need to be able to concentrate at work! So yeah my first daughter was a terrible sleep (worse than this one) and it took her one night for sleep training, I was so lucky! It'll be a pain when they won't get up as teenagers, but I will look forward to being able to sleeping in on weekends!! lol

Guideon - Thanks! It has not been easy that's for sure! Trying to work out while being sleep deprived and always on the go with the kids, it's hard to even find 25 minutes, but I make sure to fit it in somehow!

Clarissa - yeah you have to do what works for you and your family. Co-sleeping definitely doesn't work for me. I'm a terrible sleeper and I don't even hardly sleep if the baby is just in the room, let alone in my bed. I need my time at the end of the night for myself! I couldn't imagine taking an hour and a half to get the kids to sleep. It was bad enough when my toddler was fighting her naps and bedtime and it would take an hour! We finally got strict and after a couple days it went back to being great!

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So last night (night 2) of sleep training..... she slept through the night!! :party: I couldn't believe it! My first daughter, it only took her one night to learn, and I didn't think I'd get this lucky this time, but I may have! We will see how the next few nights go. She went to bed at 9:00 pm and slept until 4:50 am! She lightly cried/fussed for at most a minute and went back to sleep. She did that every 10-20 mins untul 6:00 am and then slept until 7:50 am! It went so great, I couldn't be happier. I really really hope tonight goes just as well!

So I've been doing my Focus T25 and this week is week 3. I feel like, I'm still so terrible at it. I can do some stuff a little more, but I feel like I'm just as out of shape as when I started. Maybe I'm too impatient to get fitter, but I was hoping to be more improved than I am. Maybe it'll take more time since every day is a different DVD... so I have only done each DVD about 2 times, some of them like the Cardio one 4 times. So maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself.

Also, my knee still hurts and I hope it's nothing serious. My fall was a while ago and I thought it would be better by now. Made an appt with the Dr for Thursday.
 
Good to hear there's improvement in the sleeptraining.

As far as the workouts go, you are improving every time you do a workout. It can be frustrating not to see the result you're wanting/expecting. I've had that before as well. But results will come, your hard work will have it rewards.
 
Yay on the sleep training. Good for you and good for baby.

Keep up with the exercise. You will be improving. I know what you mean thou. I felt like that when i started 30ds. Made the mistake of pushing myself too much. Take it slow. You will get there. You're already on the way :)
 
I hope everything is OK? you haven't posted in a while, and you were updating almost every day.

Have a nice week and take care! (>^-^)>
 
Ok so I have been away and I feel bad! Here is what happened and how I've been feeling lately:

So the baby got sick and had fevers for a few days. I thought it was just bad teething. But the fever was persistent, had to alternate giving tylenol and advil because before it was time for the next dose of one med the fever would be back! So I had to give both meds just to keep her fever mild. Those days, all she would do was lay on me. She was either staring off at whatever or falling in and out of sleep. I had no time to do anything those days. My poor baby was so not herself and did not want anything but to be in my arms!

Then the fever went away but then she got a rash. I thought it was from soap since she gets one when I use soap on her. But the rash was worse than usual. It was also really bugging her.... she kept scratching behind her ears and her head, screaming and crying! So I took her to the walk-in. The doctor thought, worst case scenario, it was scarlet fever. But the fever was gone, ears/throat/chest was all good. He didn't thinki it was from the soap but said I could try Benedryl cream for the itch if it was an allergy reaction. The next day, the rash was no better and spreading a bit more. I knew for sure it wasn't from the soap (because the soap rash never lasted this long or spread this much). Took her to the family doctor and he said the fevers were from a virus she was fighting and the rash is the after effect of the virus/fever. He said the worst of the virus and rash were over and the rash should be gone in a couple days. He suggested a different cream to try for the itching. This one worked a lot better and the rash did go away after a few more days. But between the fevers and her being lethargic on me, then the rash and her being completely miserable and not wanting to be out of my arms either.... I had NO time for anything!

Also, when I was at the doctor, I mentioned my knee. It's been two months since I tripped in the mall (holding my daughter) and landed on my one knee with both our weights! I thought for sure that the pain would be gone by now. The exercise I think was aggrevating it, it wasn't getting any better and was slightly getting worse. Doctor said to not do those workouts and that physio may help. So my appointment is on Wednesday. I hope my stupid knee gets better soon, and that I don't have to go to physio too much because it's bloody expensive!

With all that going on, I ate like crap on top of it. Gave in to cravings and gorged myself on chips and chocolate, peanut m&m's, crap food, etc. Didn't help it was just before my time of the month in which my appetite is largely increased (so stupid) and then stressed (stress eating, more stupid)... so the combination of the two... was bad!!!!!

On a positive note, the sleep training was the best thing I did (and I knew it would be). It did take only one night (horrible night, but only one!) and she slept and is still sleeping through the night! Yay to no more night time breastfeeding and getting up every 1-2 hours!!! She still will randomly cry during the night or early morning, but it is very short (usually lasts 30 seconds, maybe a few minutes) but she goes to sleep on her own after that.

Here is how I've been feeling: Overwhelmed. I feel overwhelmed with everything. Watching the two children, both have lots of needs since they are so young. Their naps don't coincide, so I don't get a break all day until bedtime. Trying to fit in workouts was so hard because of that, toddler gets up early so I can't do it then, by the end of the night I was exhausted and didn't want to do it then! Now I can't even do it because of my knee!

I am also overwhelmed because I have a lot of stuff I want to do before I have to go back to work. I want to get my toddler's photo albums done (0-1 years old, 1-2 years old, and start the 2-3 years old album). Also, do my baby's pregnancy and birth journal, keep working on her first year calendar (I actually have that almost up to date... woo!), and start her 0-1 years old photo album.... it's just so much that needs to get done and I have no bloody time to do it!

Then I think about work and start freaking out. I don't want to go back to work this time around! My toddler is fun, my baby is an angel and I'd love to spend the time with them. I have to worry about weaning from daytime breastfeeding and that's stressing me out. The first time was easy because she went on milk. Well this one has a dairy allergy which she might grow out of at a year old but I can't give her dairy until then and she may still be allergic. So what do I give her???? I really don't want to do a soy formula. I can't give almond/rice milk because it doesn't have the fat content. Babies are so picky I know I can't make sure she EATS the fat content with avocado or something. So I'm thinking..... almond milk and mix in pureed avocado or flax seed oil... so that it has the fat? GAH! I don't know.

Then when I am back to work.... when do I workout? I don't want to take away even more time from the kids! This is when I wish I would have lost all my weight before I had kids! Then I'd only have to worry about losking the pregnancy weight.

I feel so overwhelmed because I feel like I have so much to do and no time to do it in. I feel like I need to be able to pause time so I could have a couple hours to myself and I would have to do that every day so that I could get my workout in, work on the albums, get extra cleaning/organizing/decluttering done, etc. But obviously I can't do that. Yeah I forgot to mention my house is a disaster. We share the house with my sister and her family. We have the downstairs (shared kitchen upstairs though). That's a whole other stress all on its own! But I don't have enough room for all my stuff and I want to go through everything and clean and get rid of what I don't need.... HA... that will never happen with the time that I don't have.

It just all seems impossible. I'm sorry for this long rant and I don't even know if anyone will make it through this whole thing, but this is what happened and how I've been feeling. I just feel overwhelmed and that it's imossible to get everything done. I haven't come on because it felt like another damn thing I had to do. So what did I do instead.... after the kids were in bed, I'd watch a couple TV shows because I'm so overwhelmed I can't even focus and I'm so upset that I'm not getting more done.... and I just give up because I need to just be brainless and unwind.

I finally made myself come on and confess everything. Sorry it was so long. I hope I can find a solution to get myself out of this rut! Thanks for anyone who made it this far!
 
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Hope the baby got all better!

As for yourself; don't freak out about work, it's not worth it.
Enjoy your time with your kids, worry about work when you're there.
 
Oh Risty--things sound so stressful right now. Can't imagine how hard it must be to leave the kids & go back to work. Exercise can fit in around you & the babies. When do you go back to work? Are you going back to the same job? Thinking of you xxx
 
Guideon - The baby is all better now thank goodness!

Sunflower - I'm going back to the same work (unit clerk) but this time I'm not a casual, I picked up a position while on mat leave! It'll be so nice knowing my schedule and working in the same place! Though that can be bad too because I'm the only unit clerk on that unit (well, two units) so if something goes wrong or whatever, it's all my fault! Not like when you're casual and you're not there the next day :p haha. But I got a position at residential so it'll be much slower paced than the hospital which is good and bad. Good because I won't be stressed, bad because I may get bored out of my mind at times! I hate trying to look busy, but maybe I'll have a lot more duties to do since it's my unit. I'm a little nervous because I've never owned my own line before, but I'm sure it'll be ok. My hours will be Mon-Fri from 0930-1630. So it's nice, not too early, not too late.... the only thing is the hours of work are the hours open for any type of appointments so if I or the kids need to go to the dr, dentist, etc... that'll be a challenge until I build up vacation time or whatever! The hours will be great for when the kids go to school because I can drop them off before work and hubby can pick them up when they are done! So I'm thinking about how it'll be great in the future. The only thing about being casual I'll miss is that if you don't want to work, you don't have to! lol.... But with my position I'll finally have benefits!!!

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I wish my physio appt was sooner! Ah well, Wednesday will come soon enough I suppose. I just want my knee better, this is really annoying! Who would have thought a simple thing like tripping would be such a problem!
 
Hello Risty. I'm really sorry to hear about what happened with your daughter and you knee. I hope she is Ok, and that your knee gets better.

I think I can relate about being overwhelmed. I'm constantly being pressured by my family or my school. Time passes, but I just want to be left alone and do things at my own pace. It is not a good situation to be in and can be very stressing and frustrating.

I really hope that you can find a way to deal with all this. I hope you can have a nice week, too. Take care of yourself. :grouphug:

P.S: I'm sorry if some sentences don't make sense. I'm writing from my phone and have no way to make sure if they are properly written.

Edit: I just read the post above me. I'm glad that things are starting to go on a more positive way. What I said still remains, though; I hope you can get an outcome you are happy with.
Take care. :)
 
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Try not to think of all the frustrations at once. Work on one thing that you can make better and at least that will let you see progress which will help a bit. Enjoy the kids while they are little and things are chaotic. Some day they will be grown and gone and your house will be clean...and lonely! I think you are doing a great job!
 
Aww Risty. Sorry the baby's not been well. Poorly babies is not nice. Glad she's all better. Sorry to hear about the knee. Let us know how the appt goes.
 
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