Sorry for the radio silence, peeps. I’ve been going through a third-life crisis. I didn’t have a quarter-life crisis, so this was clearly long overdue. To be honest, I struggled with a bit of baby blues around 5 months postpartum with the twins and Lola is almost 5 months old, so the timing of my current existential crisis is not lost on me.
However, this time my hormonal shift is combined with keeping up with two toddlers and making some very difficult, but very important, life changes. When life gets tough I tend to become introverted. Go figure. Yesterday I was simultaneously running on a treadmill and crying, so I can feel that a breakdown breakthrough is near.
Speaking of Miss Lola, she’s such a doll. I mean really the best baby ever, and I’m only slightly biased. She’s so happy and smiley, such a stark contrast from where we started. She sleeps in her swing, in our bedroom, at night (STILL) for 10-12 hours a night. Although lately her sleep is punctuated by a few wake-ups. Since this isn’t my first time at the rodeo I know the wake-ups are temporary and she’s likely getting ready to master a new skill (i.e. rolling).
She is also becoming harder to put down at night. I’m not the momma you want if you need to be rocked to sleep. If you’re sick, I’ll rock you for a year. But if you’re well, go to your bed and go to sleep. Momma doesn’t have the patience to sit in the dark and rock and pray that when I place your silly behind down ever so gingerly that you don’t startle, thus necessitating the process start all over again.
Her fussiness at bedtime mixed with an elongated evening nap are clear signs that this kid can no longer revolve entirely around her siblings’ schedule. Lola needs a routine of her own (even if it is somewhat based on the twins and their routine) and she needs some sleep training.
Thank god I wrote about this stuff when the twins were little, because coming across this post was so helpful today. I am going to reread Ferber this weekend and put a plan into action next week. I am a big fan of sleep training and Ferber in general. It’s worked for our family. I know it’s not for everybody. But it is for us.
One of the pieces I am struggling with is how to put a plan in place for a baby who isn’t the star of the show. Doing this crap with the twins was so much easier because they were my 100% sole focus. With Lola, I ain’t gonna lie, she sometimes gets left in a car seat in the mudroom cause she is sleeping and I need to get lunch down and get the twins down and then clean up from lunch and oh heyyyyy the baby is awake and crying, where the hell is she? Oh yeah…in the mudroom where you left her two hours ago. Yeah. Not awesome. But the truth.
She seems so tiny to me, so I can’t believe I was sleep training the twins when they were her size. Man I had balls. Anyway, I am terrified because life is already kind of rough with the twins bursting into the nursery screaming like banshees while I’m trying to put the baby down and it’s already like Lord of the Flies up in this piece on a daily basis. So I’m just preparing myself with promises of twig wine and xanax (not mixed together, of course) just in case.
Anyone have experience with sleep training an infant with older kids? I’d love some tips and advice.
