The End of CoSleeping

Since the day my daughter was born she has slept in my room, on my bedside. Every night for 2 years and ninety four days she slept either with us or in her bed, next to mine.

When we brought her home from the hospital she started out in her bassinet, that lasted for about 6 months. I don't remember exactly when, or why but she ended up in our bed, and she just stayed there. Until last year, after we moved here to California, I set her crib up as a toddler bed and we slowly transitioned her into it. First I had her bed set as a side-car. This allowed her to move back and forth easily. After I got her accustomed to sleeping in her bed I moved it about a foot away from our bed. I put a neck pillow along the edge to prevent her from rolling out, something I'd seen done on pinterest with pool noodles. It wasn't perfect, and she still rolled out a handful of times, but it worked good enough. She got to the point of mostly sleeping in her bed sometime last fall. But I was still breastfeeding her so she moved into our bed every night at some point. It was still convenient to have her in our room.

Just after the first of this year I got a cold, and partly due to cold medicine and partly due to it just being time, Evey weaned. With her no longer breastfeeding she was sleeping almost the entire night in her bed, only climbing into our bed to wake me up in the morning. At this point the only thing keeping her in our room, was the fact that I liked having her there, I was comforted by the fact that I can check on  her any second of the night.

She has this beautiful room.

(I lost the sheet to her bed, so I need to make a new one, or go to Ikea to buy another.)

The last thing I needed to do was to attach her dresser to her wall.

It weighs about a billion pounds and it's unlikely she would be able to tip it over, but the chance that she did, it would surely crush her if it fell on top of her.

Yesterday I put about 30 holes in the wall trying to find the studs, but I found them, and I got this sucker attached to the wall, it's not going anywhere.

So last night she slept in her big girl bed. For the first time in two years and ninety four days she didn't sleep next to me. I had a hard time with it at first. I checked her on the monitor about 400 times. But she slept all night, until 8 this morning. When I woke up to the sound of her whispering to her bunny "hop, hop, hop" 

8am

"hop hop hop"

When I remotely moved the camera she looked up at it so I was able to get these cute shots of her face. Then she went back to playing with her bunny. I laid and watched her for about 15 minutes before she called for me.

I am so proud of her for making it the whole night in her big girl bed. And I'm very proud of myself for not moving in there with her, no matter how badly I wanted to.

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I cracked the code!

I am sure simply by writing about this I am going to jinx it and tomorrow will be a total fail. But...

I cracked Evey's nap time code!

Since the beginning I've just let Evey do what she wants, she eats when she wants, she sleeps when she wants, except at night, she sleeps at night when we do, but through the day she does what she wants when she wants to. 

Until recently she has napped a few hours a day. Since her shots two weeks ago those naps have all but stopped, she cat naps, but we haven't had very many big naps. So mommy gets nothing done. 

I'll have to start with Monday, Monday she was a little sick, and had a fever most of the night (more on that later.) Tuesday I was tired and I had gotten nothing done. I had spent most of monday night watching You Tube videos to stay awake while monitoring Evey's fever. I mostly watched HannainJapana who is an American girl who married a Japanese National and has a baby. She posts a lot about parenting as an American in Japan. 

Well anyway, in one of her videos, She was nursing her daughter to sleep, and she was sitting in a dark room. Duh, I know, dark room, but for some reason it never occurred to me. I would just nurse her sitting on the couch and put her into her rock and play and then go about my day until she woke up. And lately that's been about 15-20 min at a time. 

But Hanna gave me the great idea of trying it in a dark room. Plus I can get more done and make more noise cleaning when I have her in another room. So first I just put her town in her pack in play in the dark, and that didn't work. So I put the iPod on Pandora on the lullaby channel, and it still didn't work. So I swaddled her, and nursed her until she fell asleep, then rather than put her into her pack and play I just put her in the middle of our bed.

It was like magic. Yesterday she slept 3 hours, and I had to wake her to eat, today she slept 2 1/2 until I dropped something and made a huge racket. 

It was awesome. 

And I got so much done. 

So now we have 2pm nap time. I hope it continues to be a success. 

- Alana

I need to take notes

When I lay in bed at night, sometimes at like 1 am I get these great ideas for blogs, and they sound just amazing. But I don't write them down. Morning comes, and I cannot remember my great idea. 
I hope it comes back to me. 

Source: piccsy.com via _Pavor on Pinterest

Dreams

My bed.

I read an article on my phone in bed last night before I went to sleep. It was about lucid dreams and controlling your dreams. It made me think of my dreams. I am almost always aware I am dreaming, and I can often control what I do in my dreams.

I like to fly, I can fly by (in my dream) pedaling my legs like I am on a bicycle or flapping my arms like a bird.

I also dream in color. usually. But my dreams almost always take place at night, not that I dream at night but in my dream it's usually night time.

I can bring myself out of a dream by blinking my eyes. I learned this at a young age when I dreamed my parents were alligators and were going to eat me.

I find that I have better control and awareness of my dreams when i go to my second sleep. I usually go to bed around 11 or 12 with then I wake up at 6-7 with Paul, take care of the dogs, and then I got back to sleep for 2-3 more hours until I have to get up. That 2-3 hours is my second sleep. And it's full of weird, strange, silly ands sometimes scary dreams.

How to wake your human, A lesson from AIko McCawley

Aiko gives the stink eye to all who do not rise from the bed when she is ready to get up.

This morning started like many other, I wanted to sleep in and Renji said no, so he got put in the box (kennel) and Aiko and I curled up in bed for another 30 min of sleep. At about 9:30 she decided sleep time was done and it was time to rise and shine. I did not agree, I worked the day before and was up late last night and was tired as hell.

So I rolled to my side and ducked under the covers, Aiko then decides the best course of action is pace back and forth on my kidneys. This gets me to roll on my back, however still hiding under the covers. She comes to my side and starts to dig at the top of the covers, this sometimes means "let me in, I want to snuggle!", not today, it meant "let me in so I can slobber on your face to wake you up!".

After getting covered in drool I was able to hide from her again, still on my back. She then she decides to stand on my sternum and try to pull the sheets off my face with her teeths, once again she gains access to my face instead of slobber-fest she does this thing that I call a snarfle, it can best be described as a cross between, a sigh and a scoff with extra added drool spray. Just as I make eye contact with here and I am about to concede she goes in for more kisses, slobbering all over my forehead and eyes.

Now I am up, Aiko wins this round, tomorrow maybe I'll slip her a sleeping pill...

Something else I love

I love our bedroom. It's so fancy.

(the pillows on the bed are hard to see because they are in dark burgundy cases, I still need to get the shams that match the bedspread.)

Coming Soon

I've infused some olive oils. 

They will take about two weeks to set, but I am really excited. 

but tonight I need to sleep, I am seriously lacking on sleep. It's been close to three weeks since I have slept more than three consecutive hours. I was blaming Paul but I don't think it's his fault. It's really starting to take a toll on me, today I was so physically and emotionally drained by the time I got out of school at 2:30 pm I was ready to cry, just because I was so exhausted. Now it's 9 pm and I've got my second wind. 

I just finished cleaning most of the kitchen because, well because despite the fact that Paul just cleaned it yesterday we have a minor ant infestation. I'm attempting to deal with it on my own, but they are coming from the island between the Living room and Kitchen so I'm not sure if I can stop them, I may have to call the housing agency. Who are already gonna hate me when I get done with school next week and call them with the list of things that needs to get done, that I've been putting off because I don't want them alone in the house with the animals, not that I think they would hurt them or anything, I just worry about them getting out. Now that I'll be out of school for the summer (online classes) they can take their time completing my list of demands :)

And that's all I've got. 

Have a lovely day. and comment, it's good for you :)

meh

today was just a bad day, i woke up at 3 am and the room was spinning (and no mom i wasnt drunk/hungover) i didnt know why it was happening. i got up to pee and i fell in the hall, hit the wall, i felt like i was really drunk i was totally disoriented and dizzy as all hell. after a few min it subsided and i went back to bed,  then at 5 the dog had to pee and she woke me up, same thing again, i stumbled down the hall and out the front door like a drunk. after a few min i was fine. then i went back to bed, we (dog-doo and me) slept until 10 (super late for me as of lately) and i was dizzy still! i got up and felt like crap, i was sore all over and just exhausted. no exercise for me today. i took a shower and in the middle i dropped my face wash leaned down to get it and when i stood back up my head started spinning and i was seeing little stars everywhere. it was awful. Paul says i'm probably dehydrated, i ran two days in a row and didnt give my body a chance to rehydrate. i sort of suck and hydration. then this evening i noticed my depth perception is sort of messed up.  things were sort of pulsing in my vision. 

i'm going to keep pumping water but if i still feel like this tomorrow i'm thinking i should call the doctor.