Irony. {or, and example of our sleep chaos}

The past 24 hours have been very, and I do mean very, ironic.

My daughter woke up from her nap yesterday at 12:30 pm, which is earlier than normal. We went about our afternoon of grocery shopping, getting the mail, and going for a quick walk.

We ate dinner (applesauce, cheese, puffs, and a tiny bit of chicken--nothing new), took a bath, and she was asleep by 7:05 pm. That is on the early side for her typical bedtime of 7:30 pm, but she was really tired since her nap ended so early.

While getting ready for bed ourselves, my husband and I discussed how it was finally time to start night weaning. We decided that if when she woke up before morning, he would go calm her down, if necessary...but under no circumstances would I go in the room. We've tried this approach before, but G screamed hysterically until I went in there, and I had always caved. She is almost 11 months old, though, and really does not need to be eating at night. Comforted? Maybe. Eating? No.

We knew it would be a hard night, but were prepared for it. We hoped that after a few nights of crying hysterics, we'd all be sleeping peacefully by Monday night.

I think our crazy (but lovable) daughter heard us in her sleep, because she completely wreaked our plans.

Around midnight, G woke up and cried a little bit, nothing too loud. We waited in our bed, listening to the monitor. A few minutes later, the crying stopped and we sort of drifted back to sleep. A couple minutes passed, but then there was more crying. My husband decided to go see if she was poopy*. I laid in bed, praying for Mary to help my child go back to sleep without needing me. Then, I heard my husband say something over the monitor. That was strange, because he swore he wouldn't need my help, even if she was poopy. Since I didn't hear what he said, I went to stand outside her door to see if he would repeat it. A minute later, he said something that I couldn't make out yet again; so I whispered, "What?"

"She threw up." my poor husband loudly whispered.
"What??" I said, even though I was pretty sure I heard what he said.
"She puked everywhere!" he said.

At which point, I rushed in... fearing she had some horrible tummy bug, choked on something, or hated me for not going in right away.

He was right, it was all over her sheets, clothes, and head/hands. The room also reeked of stomach acid smell. Ger.oss.

She was sobbing, confused and dirty. I went about cleaning her hands and face, changing her diaper and  clothes. My husband stripped her bed and remade it, sans loveys. Thankfully, I made her two baby pillows, so he replaced that.

I wasn't sure if I should nurse her or not, but she was so pitiful, it's all I wanted to do. My husband went to start some laundry, so I tried to nurse her, but 30 seconds after she latched on...she pulled off and threw up again. She was shaking, and not making any noise. I shrieked for my husband, scared she was choking on her on vomit. He turned on the light and I turned her over so gravity could help. She was fine, just scared. I've never seen a young baby vomit like that. I was scared too...but we cleaned her up again. Rocked her a bit, and but her back to sleep.

4:30 am comes and she woke up again. My husband went in, changed her poopy diaper, and tried to get her back to sleep. I just wanted to nurse her, because I knew her tummy was empty. He walked out, and I asked if he thought I should nurse her....he said that our plan was to not do so. I agreed that I had said that, but she was sick!

Long story not so short...she was nursed twice last night, despite our best intentions.



*G should not need to nurse so often at night. If she only ate once at night (around like 4:30), I'd be fine with that. But there are nights when I nurse her 2 or 3 times! It's ridiculous. I don't always nurse her back to sleep; sometimes she does fall asleep while eating, but stirs when I lay her down. Other times she is wide awake and can put herself to sleep just fine.
There is absolutely no consistency to her sleep habits--especially because she often poops in the middle of the night. If she poops and, thus, needs to be changed, I nurse her to calm her down. I just wish there was a way to stop her from pooping at night, because it's nearly a nightly occurrence, which usually means I have to nurse her to get her to sleep again. This needs to stop, but the cycle will be hard to break.