New year, new way of getting to sleep

Something’s changed with how Maggie gets to sleep. Used to we had to rock her for 5-10 minutes, but now she will death-grip you even if you go until your arms are about to fall out of their sockets. Putting the baby down via rocking has become a chore, which is sad because we had this whole rock for two songs/place in bed/sleep thing going on for a while.

This seems to have been caused by, or it’s a coincidence, the trip to Oregon and her sleeping and complaining non-stop in a play-pen or on people.

When we got back she was a nightmare. Her normal bedtime was 7, but now she’d scream absurdly until she threw up if you put her down. I got some lessons in cleaning hork out of a My Pal Violet and a glow worm this past week. It was not as glamorous as it sounds.

ITMama looked up something on them darn fangled internets that mentioned not rocking them much but patting them on the back at this age, thinking this was horse hockey we tried it and it pretty much worked which surprised the hell out of me.

Last night about a minute of rocking, sitting down in the crib, and then some back patting and Maggie was down. Now, last night did take a few attempts as it was loud, there was another toddler around, and a host of factors, but each time was a bit of rocking and a bit of back patting and leaving the room deliberately, but not overly quickly.

Supposedly Maggie’s learning that the world goes on when she sleeps and not wanting to miss it, along with learning that sleep is associated with being in the bed and not in my arms. I’ll buy this as long as it means Maggie gets to sleep through the night.

Pissed off sleepy toddler is not something I want to face too many times in a row.