The last few nights have been tough on all of us. We've tried putting Hila to bed without her bottle of milk. There was one successful night, but the others have just ended in tears. Lots of tears. And lots of bottles.
Her not-really-sleeping-through-the-night phase actually started before we started trying to break her of her bottle habit. We think either she was teething (though we still haven't seen new teeth) or that she was constipated (good thing Hila likes prune juice). So I guess looking back it wasn't a good time to spring something new on her, but I sort of thought that since she was having trouble sleeping through the night anyways, maybe now actually WOULD be a good time to sort of double up on an annoyance. Why wait until everything is smooth sailing to THEN throw another curve ball at her?
In any case, Hila has not been sleeping so well lately...with or without the bottle. She'll go to sleep well, but then wake up a few times in the night and refuse to be put back in her crib until she's tossed and turned in our bed (quite violently) for some time and built some block towers in the living room.
The other night she INSISTED on hugging the dish soap for a little while. Today, during an almost-tantrum (she's never had a full-blown tantrum, just almost-tantrums), she again insisted on hugging the soap, but then I had to take it away (more tears) when I saw her sneaking a nip at the nozzle.
That was one little fight we had. We had another fight the other day when I told her that she can only eat unwrapped cheese triangles (which of course she did not want) and not the foil-wrapped ones (which she squeezed so hard in an effort to not let me get them that I had to throw them out). She doesn't really like cheese anyways; I don't know why I even tried.
She made me think of Sandra Boynton's What's Wrong Little Pookie? last night when she was crying and crying and crying and I kept asking her what was wrong and if she wanted X, Y, or Z, and she kept saying "no" in such a small, sad voice. Finally she said she wanted her daddy, which was good timing because he was on his way up the stairs at that point (he had been out watching "the game").
But don't worry, it's not all tears and sleepless nights around here. After all, there are the glorious mornings that follow these nights when we all sleep in til 8:30...9:00...and later. The other day we had to wake Hila up at 11:30.
She loves her baths more than...pretty much anything. She loves her bottles. She loves cereal (so much that sometimes that's all she eats all day). She loves the ABCs and Old McDonald. She loves jumping. She loves reading. And she loves her naps--she's about to hit 3 hours as I write this.
Today we went to a Mommy&Me shiur (I'm hosting next week, by the way) and we passed the pizza shop on Palmach. She started shouting "pizza! pizza!" She and her daddy go there a lot on their way home from gan.
Wake up, Hila, so we can play!
3 comments:
Will she drink her milk in a sippy cup? And, more importantly, can she teach my kids to sleep that late?
She can drink water and juice from a sippy cup, straw cup, and regular cup. But she will only drink milk from a bottle. They're not technically bottles--she uses the born free "trainer cup" (http://www.babythingsiwant.com/2010/01/q-are-b-free-trainer-cups-in-israel.html) but it's really a bottle.
Well, now she's in her crib crying with her watered down milk.
And she slept til 9 this morning, but she was up from like 11-2 in the middle of the night. it's a trade off.
So jealous of the sleeping in. Ami slept till 6:20 this morning and it was HEAVEN.
The only thing that ever worked for me was letting them cry it out. It takes a week or less, and even though it sounds cruel, she (and you) will be happier and more rested because of it. If you're worried she's thirsty, you can leave a sippy cup of water in her crib for her (though if she were my kid, she'd throw it out).
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