Wednesday, July 1, 2009

One Or The Other, NOT BOTH

Well, I think I'd told you that I'd has a few days where I was feeling pretty down. Then the last weeks or two, Cutezilla started napping... and I mean SERIOUS napping, especially for Cutezilla. Her naps are normally 30 to 40 minutes, with an upward limit of an hour and a half. The last two, almost three weeks, she's been napping for two and a half or three hours.

Unfortunately, I think I figured out why: she's not sleeping at night. AT ALL. Last night she had a stretch from 10pm until 2am. The hubby -- bless that man -- was up with her for over an hour, and by the time he came back downstairs, she was up again. We've been trying to let her cry it out, which is the advice everyone tells you when your kid won't sleep. Five minutes... ten minutes... fifteen minutes... twenty minutes... thirty minutes... forty minutes... forty-FIVE minutes... etc. And she just keeps going. We can't pull her into bed with us, because she tosses and turns, punches and kicks ALL NIGHT. That is, if she doesn't wake up completely and want to play. And this screaming is just that: SCREAMING. It's not little whines or howling. It's SCREAMING. Like someone hit her favorite dog with a truck or something while she was watching.

On bad nights, it's every hour, hour and a half. We go upstairs, settle her back down, wait until she's out... and twenty minutes later, she's at it again. And on those nights, even when she's NOT screaming, I can still hear it in my head like a soundtrack or something. I think technically, it's called an earworm, but that mostly refers to a song you get stuck in your head. This is not nearly as friendly. So I spend ALL NIGHT listening to her scream in one way or another.

Benedryl doesn't work on her. Neither does Zyrtec. We give her ibuprofen before bed, to make sure her teeth aren't bothering her. We have NO idea what's going on or how to fix it.

But on the other hand, she is napping, and it makes me obliviously happy during the day. I can even take a shower AND eat! It's amazing. And today? I'm getting to blog, and I'll probably work on another project I have in the dining room. Last week, I MADE A SHIRT! I've even gotten to load AND UNLOAD the dishwasher here and there, AND I've made some headway in the house. Not a lot, but it's enough to let me feel a little less crazy about it than normal.

I've also been able to get to the gym and get in some good workouts. The weightlifting and kickboxing class additions have been doing me some good, I think, although the scales are only slightly moving downward. Nothing drastic. On Friday, I'm going to try and get on one of those scales that will tell you what percentage of body fat you're carrying around -- Body Mass Index or BMI. I haven't been as sore lately as I want to be, but I think that just means I need to step up the weight I'm using. But maye in a few weeks, I'll see something definite. At least for the time being, I feel good. Even with the nighttime issues, which says a lot really.

I'm still not sure if she's A) having night terrors, or B) if she's teething, or C) if she's just screwing with us. Some nights, I think it's C, because you go upstairs and see her sitting there at the gate, and she says, "HEY!" Then she jumps up and runs back to her bed, and climbs right in. The night before last, she even brought me a pillow before she climbed into bed. Which makes me not feel terrible about when things like last night happen, and she falls asleep at the gate while she's screaming for you to come upstairs. But Sunday night, she was in misery. Her tummy hurt, and I think her teeth were bothering her, too. She hadn't eaten anything in almost a day and a half either, and if you asked her if her teeth hurt, she'd point to them and say, "OW." Not a definite sign, mind you, but more of a possibility.

So... apparently it's EITHER sleep at night... OR sleep during the day. Not BOTH. But if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

No comments: