Someone in our family has been waking up right about midnight every night so far this week.
(and it's not Ron or I - mainly because we're generally still up at that point, so it can't really be 'waking up' then, can it...)
It starts by us hearing a small voice fussing through the door to her room. We hold our breaths and wait, hoping that she will go back to sleep as up until now, she usually has.
Instead, the soft sobs and pitiful wails escalate to all out screams of "MOMMY!!"
Normally, I'd probably still just let it go, except for two things. First is that hearing her actually call my name in such a panicked tone instead of just crying makes me think that there indeed must be something horribly wrong. And second is that I'm not the one who is usually suckered in by the cries to answer her call and rescue her from the doom that is her bed. Nope, that would be Daddy. Who - somewhat understandably - wants to see his little girl since he's generally not home before she is tucked up in her crib for the night.
I'm not sure what's been waking her up right about midnight every night. She generally wants to get right down and marches into the kitchen (even if the light's off) asking for "a-cup" or "I s'ack" (cup or snack for those who don't understand Becca-ese). The first night it happened, over the weekend, Ron tried bringing her into bed with us since we had just gone to bed when the crying began. After about a half hour of being poked, prodded, kicked and climbed on, I gave up and followed her out to the kitchen. One snack, and a cup of milk later, we took her stuffed doggie, blanket and stuffed Pablo back to her bed, turned on her lullabies and she went back in without a peep.
Last night she woke screaming both my name and "I stinky!" and yup, she was. I wasn't surprised that she woke up at that point. However, after the diaper change, I was surprised when she squirmed to get down, marched into the kitchen, pointed at the refrigerator saying "I s'ack!" and once Ron opened it, grabbed an applesauce cup and walked over to the table with it. One very determined little girl, we seem to have here.
So after an applesauce cup (much of which joined the yogurt she'd had earlier as a bedtime snack on her pajama bottoms and t-shirt), several pieces of apple which Daddy cut up for her, a cup of milk and one episode of the Backyardigans, it was back to bed. With quite a few peeps this time - more like loud protests even. But within a few minutes she was back asleep.
As cute as I think she is during these midnight wakings, I fear that we're seeing the start of a pattern. Tonight I think we're going to have to resist the urge to get her out of bed (and I know how hard that will be for Daddy) if she wakes up at midnight again. On the other hand, I don't want to potentially let her lie in a stinky diaper all night either. It's so hard to know what to do sometimes!
(and it's not Ron or I - mainly because we're generally still up at that point, so it can't really be 'waking up' then, can it...)
It starts by us hearing a small voice fussing through the door to her room. We hold our breaths and wait, hoping that she will go back to sleep as up until now, she usually has.
Instead, the soft sobs and pitiful wails escalate to all out screams of "MOMMY!!"
Normally, I'd probably still just let it go, except for two things. First is that hearing her actually call my name in such a panicked tone instead of just crying makes me think that there indeed must be something horribly wrong. And second is that I'm not the one who is usually suckered in by the cries to answer her call and rescue her from the doom that is her bed. Nope, that would be Daddy. Who - somewhat understandably - wants to see his little girl since he's generally not home before she is tucked up in her crib for the night.
I'm not sure what's been waking her up right about midnight every night. She generally wants to get right down and marches into the kitchen (even if the light's off) asking for "a-cup" or "I s'ack" (cup or snack for those who don't understand Becca-ese). The first night it happened, over the weekend, Ron tried bringing her into bed with us since we had just gone to bed when the crying began. After about a half hour of being poked, prodded, kicked and climbed on, I gave up and followed her out to the kitchen. One snack, and a cup of milk later, we took her stuffed doggie, blanket and stuffed Pablo back to her bed, turned on her lullabies and she went back in without a peep.
Last night she woke screaming both my name and "I stinky!" and yup, she was. I wasn't surprised that she woke up at that point. However, after the diaper change, I was surprised when she squirmed to get down, marched into the kitchen, pointed at the refrigerator saying "I s'ack!" and once Ron opened it, grabbed an applesauce cup and walked over to the table with it. One very determined little girl, we seem to have here.
So after an applesauce cup (much of which joined the yogurt she'd had earlier as a bedtime snack on her pajama bottoms and t-shirt), several pieces of apple which Daddy cut up for her, a cup of milk and one episode of the Backyardigans, it was back to bed. With quite a few peeps this time - more like loud protests even. But within a few minutes she was back asleep.
As cute as I think she is during these midnight wakings, I fear that we're seeing the start of a pattern. Tonight I think we're going to have to resist the urge to get her out of bed (and I know how hard that will be for Daddy) if she wakes up at midnight again. On the other hand, I don't want to potentially let her lie in a stinky diaper all night either. It's so hard to know what to do sometimes!
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3 wonderful people said...:
Wow...so hard to resist, I know...specially when they call for you by name. But Victoria did that too and tried to start a pattern out of it, but when I stopped it, after a few nights, we had no more wake ups.
Big hugs to you all!
Do you think she is waking from genuine hunger? We went through this with all the boys when they were much younger. We started giving them a light snack about 30 minutes before bedtime and the middle of the night waking and snacking stopped.
Now there are other no sleep issues. *sigh* And thanks for you kind comment today.
When you figure out what to do, let me know. My (will be next week) one year old wakes up every night around 11 and won't go back to sleep until I bring her into bed with us.
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