Adjustment
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Well, Monday sucked. There was no question that it would though, was there?
Nora, my perfect little sleeper, decided to throw a wrench in things on Sunday night and was wide awake between 3-5 a.m. Of course she would choose the night before I have to go back to work to do that, right? She must've known something was going on, the little stinker. Then the time came to get up and get it over with, and I cried all the way to daycare, dropped her off, then cried all the way to work. The waterworks continued a few times at work, too, but overall, I wasn't as big of a mess as I thought I'd be.
My coworkers kept me pretty busy and plus, I have to admit I felt a certain level of liberation. I'd find myself thinking, "Wow! I can pee by myself!" and "Nice! It doesn't take me three hours to write a simple e-mail!" But I did miss my girl like crazy.
On Tuesday and today, things were easier. Drop-off hasn't been nearly as painful, and I've only called our sitter once per day instead of the three times I called her on Monday. The only thing that has really been bothering me is the lack of time with Nora. When we get her up (or she wakes up) in the morning, we only really have a half an hour or so before we have to leave the house, and of course, we're running around doing everything we need to do to get out the door. Then, when I pick her up, we don't get home until 5:30, and then we've had to start bedtime routine at 6:45. So it's just NOT.ENOUGH.TIME. I miss her so much, and it's only been three days. The weekend cannot come fast enough.
Daycare itself has been going pretty well, I think. The sitter reports that Nora is happy, alert, and drains her bottles. She apparently loves watching the other kids and observing everything around her. And the kids (all girls, coincidentally) LOVE having Nora around and dote on her. So it's a good situation and I think it'll be great for her long-term.
My only complaint? Nora is not napping.
When she was home with me, Nora would usually only go an hour to an hour and a half of awake time before she would need to take a nap. I would recognize her "tired signs" early, and could typically get her down for a nap without issue. Recently, naps had become pretty short--maybe 45 minutes to an hour--but she was taking them pretty frequently throughout the day so she was still spending a good amount of the daytime hours napping.
Now, at daycare, Nora is apparently only sleeping for a couple of hours total. Today, our sitter said that she slept for an hour and a half this morning, then an hour in the afternoon. When I picked her up, it was clear she was totally exhausted. On Monday and Tuesday, she fell asleep on the car ride home, but tonight she screamed. That should've been my first indication that things were going to be rough.
Last night, I initially got her down for bed around her normal time (7:30), but then she spent an hour and a half waking up every five minutes and fighting going back to sleep. It was aggravating, but once she was finally down (at 9:00), she was down.
Tonight, she was so clearly exhausted that I started bedtime early, and I had her in her bed by a little after 7:00. Two and a half hours later, we were still battling with her to get her to go to sleep and stay that way. It's 10:00 now and it's been a bit since we've heard from her, but I'm not entirely convinced that we won't again. IT IS BRUTAL.
I think the issue is that with each passing day, she's missing out on more sleep, never catching up on what she missed the day before. So she's becoming more and more overtired as the week wears on. I did some quick Googling and found some advice that says to try to make up for their lack of naps at bedtime. In other words, I'm going to have to try to put her to bed as soon as we get home. :( That rips my heart out, because I feel like I already get so little time with her--now I have to put her to bed at 6:00??
I hope she will start to nap better at the sitter's ASAP! The hard part is I feel like I have no control over the situation because I'm not the one who is with her during the day. *sigh* But hopefully this is just a period of adjustment, and this too shall pass.
In the meantime, I am really, really missing my girl.
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6 comments:
I've been looking forward to 'hearing' how your first few days back went. I'm glad to hear it's getting easier, but I'm sorry that Nora isn't getting enough naps. :(
How's pumping going so far? I've been back to work almost 4 months now, and I must say, I'm sick of the darn thing. ;)
~Kristen M.
I'm glad to hear it's going okay for you, and while it does get easier, it is still rough! I still miss my baby girl so much and crave the weekends, and I really do love my job. As you said, it really just isn't enough time.
Napping at daycare is rough - it will honestly take probably a month to really get adjusted, but she'll figure it out hopefully. 2 solid naps in the first week is doing great. My baby just seemed traumatized each day I picked her up for a couple weeks from the exhaustion! That part definitely gets better.
Good luck!
We had the same napping issue when our little boy started going to the sitter a couple months ago. It took him a while to get used to the noise (there are 3 other boys there...all older). The first couple of weeks were ROUGH because, like you mentioned, they just can't catch up on their sleep and the problem escalates as the week goes on. Weekends are great for catching up on some of that sleep. Once Connor got used to the noise, he got back on his regular napping schedule (took at least 2 weeks).
I get up almost an hour early every morning so I can spend time with Connor. He's an early riser anyway and I hate not getting to see him for more than a couple of hours per day! Weekends are WONDERFUL!
Glad things are going okay. And hang in there, it will get so much better once her little schedule gets back on track!
I teared up reading your last post, and I'm glad to hear things are getting better. Two naps sounds great (even though it feels like it isn't); your little miss is going through such a big change, and so are you. With time, everyone will settle into the new routine and I bet sleep gets better. She sounds like a good little sleeper, naturally. It's funny how every new twist or wrinkle in a baby's (and new mama's) routine makes a change that feels like it will go on *forever*, but I promise, adaptation happens. Hang in there and good luck!
I had to laugh that she woke up the night before work-Avery slept 12 hrs a night from 2-3 months and the night before I had to return to work she started waking up and didn't stop until she was 10mos old (not to scare you!). She still doesn't nap well at daycare or at my in-laws. There was a time that she would nap great for them, but not for me. Now that has reversed. It is hard though because it does mess up their bedtime and everything. Give her some time to adjust-hopefully it'll get better!
When my fiance and I had to go back to work after our son, Ryan, was born, we found time to be an issue too! We would get home and it would be dinnertime and then the bedtime routine would begin soon after. It seemed like there was no time with our little boy! It was depressing! And then, we got into the habit of doing everything at night. We bought a coffeemaker that could be programmed to make coffee at 6 AM exactly! And we would pick the clothes we were going to wear and lay them out for the next day. We made our lunches the night before. We each had a basket at the front door that had everything we would need for the work day! It worked great! I would get up an extra 20 minutes earlier so that I could pump. It actually gave us time in the mornings to spend with our Ryan! Maybe try a few of those things! I hope they help! Be sure to let us know how it's going! I wish you the best of luck and I promise...it does get easier!
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