SLEEPING-
Well the few of you that read this know sleeping is a major issue for us. Kaelyn has always gone to bed easily it was just keeping her asleep that was the problem. She has been in her new room for awhile now and the bedtime routine just kept getting worse. She would go to bed, wake up 2 hours later and would REFUSE to go back to sleep. I researched online until my eyes were about bleed on ways to get your kid to sleep through the night. We had tried a lot of the methods suggested by the big shots but nothing was working. Every night it was getting worse until she started not even going to sleep unless one of us was there. Now i'm sure if we stayed awake all night for a week straight we could break her of this but lets be real here... I am about to pop a baby out of my lady parts in a little over a month and Aaron works A LOT so we are down-right-tired! The poor guy is already averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night on a good day so I can't keep him awake with a screaming toddler all night. We are doing the best we can with the situation we are in, and sometimes as a parent that's all you can do.
So one day I asked on Facebook what my friends tried with their kids. My google searches weren't helping so I figured reaching out to my friends with kids was the next option. A lot of people suggested Melatonin. I had read up on that beforehand and everything said DON'T give it to small kids so I was a little leary. Eventually I figured what the heck, my friends kids took it and are still normal so i'll give it a try. I headed to Marlene's and some kind woman offered to help me. When I told her I was looking for Melatonin for my toddler she looked at me like I just asked her where she keeps her secret stash of crystal meth. After a kind lecture about what Melatonin will do to my childs brain she suggested that I try these Valerian/Passion Flower drops. I thanked her for her help but she stayed there until she saw me take the bottle as if she was trying to make sure I didn't just go for the Melatonin. (I still left with a bottle of Melatonin in case these herbal drops were crap.) The bottle said things like Eclectic Kids!! SUPER TASTY! It had a picture of a clown hugging a happy kid. I should have known this was all wrong just based off the bottle. The drops are probably hands down one of the worst things I have tasted. Ever. I tried giving them to Kaelyn a few times but she wasn't down with the taste either. Then one night she channeled her crazy side and was totally manic all night. Climbing on her dresser, throwing things around her room, banging on the door, hitting the walls. Honestly it scared me a little because she didn't even seem awake when she was doing this. It was like some little gremlin had taken over her body and was lashing out. I called the Dr the next morning -anyone who knows me knows this means I am at my breaking point because I am not the kind of parent that takes their kid to the dr unless it's a MUST. I felt this was reason enough. Nobody wants a gremlin for a child. He ok'd the melatonin (thank goodness!!) to the woman at Marlene's- shame on you for freaking me out about it in the first place! We crush up a pill and mix it with some applesauce. Result- see picture below.
She goes to sleep on her own. She still wakes up at night but is MUCH calmer and goes back to sleep easier.No more gremlin monster! If she still has issues after a few weeks the Dr wants us to come back because she may have some sort of sleep disorder. Fun.
POTTY TRAINING-
Pfffffft-I need to take a deep breath before I even talk about this! I know I am a good parent but this potty training business has made me question my abilities. It makes me wanna grab a bottle of Pinot Grigio and head for the hills until she is a teenager. I don't know why she flat out won't go. We have tried lots of methods with this as well and no such luck. Stubborn kid. A friend of mine sent me a link to a blog about a potty training boot camp you can do in one day. This was the one thing I haven't tried. I had most of what was needed to have the boot camp and rain was in the forecast the following week so I thought I would give it a go. Well on Monday Kaelyn just decided it was time to tell us she had to go potty and started using the toilet. Now by using the toilet I mean she tells us she has to go, sits on the toilet-nothing. Says shes done then pees in her "pannies" 5 minutes later. After doing that a few times she will finally catch it in time to make it in the potty. Hey-MAJOR progress for us. The whole time she says, "I go potty Mama, I go to Pre-skoo now!" I am so proud of her but running to the bathroom 50 million times a day (when she only goes 1 out of every 5 trips or so)and being 34 weeks prego having to pee constantly yourself isn't fun. I am POOPED. No pun intended. Now all of her dolls have to go potty on the toilet. Which is probably why she decided to have a party with the baby powder the other day.That or she watched the movie Blow without us knowing and thought this was the kind of powder Johnny Depp fancied. Either way, it was a mess. If you missed the pictures here ya go-
It was one of those moments where all you can do is laugh. She was alone for MAYBE a few minutes while I was on the phone in another room.
Back to why some days are against me, today being one of them. I was babysitting today and was going to have our neighbors son for a bit in the afternoon since it was a half day. Here was my plan- Feed Una and get her sleeping. Feed Kaelyn lunch early and get her down for a nap. Get crazy barking dog in garage and meet the person walking Manny to our house in the street so our dog wouldn't bark and wake the kids. He would come in and we would hang out until Kaelyn was up from her nap. Easy right? Yep, it is. For anyone other than me.
Here's what really happened- Fed Una but she wouldn't sleep. No biggie she is a good baby anyways so she was just hanging out. I started having contractions so Kaelyn's lunch was a bit late. I laid her down but she wouldn't sleep. She was crying in her room for a few minutes when I noticed Una was just starting to fall asleep. I look out the window and see Manny coming down the street, at that moment Kaelyn runs out of her room screaming she has to go potty. I get her in the bathroom and as im pulling down her pull-ups she diarrhea's ALL OVER the floor and steps in it! I knew she snuck extra fruit at breakfast and this was proof of it! I manage to clean it up faster than I can blink and get her back into bed before Manny comes. ( I was determined to get Kaelyn to nap because Aaron is going to be gone until 1030 tonight and I didn't want to deal with a non napper all day alone.) Prince starts barking anyway and Una wakes up. I get some TV on for Manny but can tell he is bored and itching to get Kaelyn up since she wasn't really sleeping anyways. He looked at me and with all the seriousness in his 6 year old face he says "You know, I didn't come over today to just sit on your couch and be quiet." After a good laugh I figured the day had won the battle against me and we got Kaelyn up. They played and she eventually got to go next door for awhile. THANK you to my wonderful neighbors. Ya'll wore her out and she was asleep within 30 seconds of her head hitting the pillow tonight! My mother also must have taken pity on me today because she came over and cooked me dinner. I don't know why some of the easiest things to do are just down right impossible for me these days!
I need to have this baby already.
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