Cosleeping is not always fun.
Take last night…
Please! 
My sleep was so interrupted that I was tempted to fling the baby at my husband and run to the next room to sleep on the floor.
Occasionally Ruby has these nights where she flips and flops and flails like a squid out of water.
I’m worried about her falling out of bed (even though there is a large, thick mattress-like pillow over there so she couldn’t possibly get injured). She sometimes clocks me right in the eyeball with a foot, or I get a sharp elbow in the sternum.
- I’ve tried giving up caffeine. Doesn’t help.
- It’s not hunger. There’s no difference if she eats a big dinner before bed. And she wasn’t really waking to nurse anyway. She was just fighting invisible Ninjas all night long.
- Teething? Perhaps. Hard to say, because babies are always teething. Sometimes she sleeps great, despite.
I wonder, is it overstimulation?
Yesterday was kind of a busy day for Ruby.
I took the oldest and a buddy to the High Museum here in Atlanta for a field trip.
Just me, two adolescent boys, and the little one.
And lots of art and stuff.
We browsed contemporary and modern art.
The other floors have mostly statues of naked women.
With a 13 and 14 year old boy?
I think I’ll pass.
(I know. I finally post an actual picture of myself, and it’s blurry.)
That’s an awful lot of visual stimuli.
Also, there was the toddler room. Full of plastic vegetables, wooden blocks, and magnets you could stick on a large wall.
And lots of other toddlers.
Sensory overload, maybe?
Also she sort of skipped a proper nap. And we ended up going to my Mom’s house, which is like DisneyLand on crack for the young un’s. She upended and overturned everything there.
Maybe overtired and overstimulated?
She literally woke up about every 20 minutes all night.
What’s your theory about older babies and toddlers not sleeping well at night?
We had to stop co-sleeping because of this reason and we bought a Chicco play yard to have him sleep in our room but with the MamaDoo Kids mattress topper to make it more comfortable as we were having some sleep problems (the mattress that comes with play yards is hard as a rock). We bought the play yard as it is portable and we also can use it when visiting friends or traveling. The topper too as it folds in 3.
Growth spurt, needs an extra nap, but finding the time to get that nap in can be hard as you know. plus sleeping on the go is never restful. sorry we had to get there early! great pictures though. Austin said it was “pretty cool”… guess that’s good in teen speak.
In “No Cry Sleep Solution” I figured out how kids lacking in sleep really affects their ability to fall and stay asleep. She talks about doing anything and everything to get god naps. My son is 18 months and we still co-sleep and I have night where I at least vow to night wean him because he wakes me so much. But, he will be older so soon and out of the bed, so I just try to focus on that! Then, hopefully a new baby will be in the bed!
I used to own that book and it is good! The challenge when you have kids of different ages is competing needs – as much as I try to stay home, sometimes older kids need to be taken on an outing.
I’ll check that out from the library and see if I can pick up some other good tips.
pretty cool. teen speak. LOL
I’m not sure Ruby would be able to fall asleep without me, but dh and I have brainstormed a possible solution. We’re putting a toddler bed next to ours, so that after she nurses to sleep I can hopefully roll her gently onto it. She’s very active and thrashing some nights. Thanks for the suggestion!