A few favorites from the past few months :)
Mommy: What's your favorite color? Savannah: Grape!
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monkey-isms
A few favorites from the past few months :)
Mommy: What's your favorite color? Savannah: Grape!
Savannah:
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
I don't remember signing up for this...
"It won't be like this for long." Such a true, heartwrenching country song that is.
It's so hard to hold on to that sentiment amidst the bedtime struggles we've had and continue to have. You just can't reason with a 2.5 year old. At this point, if I could bribe her with a dang pony, I'd do it.
In reality, this has gone on for about two months. It started as just throwing up if we tried to leave the room at bedtime. She would be ok if one of us would lie on the floor next to her bed. Then she'd wake up if we tried to leave the room. Since she caught us trying to sneak out after she was asleep, it transformed into throwing up at the mention of bedtime. Whether we laid in her room or not. She would be lying in bed just fine, look at us, and throw up.
Sadly, we could and still can see in her face that it's intentional. Some nights she would throw up 3 times before everything was up, and there would be dry heaves after that.
She would never tell us what was wrong. She would just cry and say "lie down" over and over again.
We gave it a break. We cheated. We let her fall asleep on the couch watching a movie, and carried her up to bed. The thought was, maybe she would break the habit if we didn't push the bedtime issue for a little while. It was working out okay, it just wasn't ideal. After about two weeks, when we were starting to wonder when we should "try again" with putting her to bed (because be honest, would you be looking forward to going back to potentially being puked all over?), it came to an end. She woke up as Peter was carrying her up the stairs. She looked at him and threw up on him and on the stairs.
The next night, we tried again. More vomit. We sat on the floor with her in her room for half an hour. We asked yet again what was wrong. She finally said she was scared. She pointed to the bed when we asked what she was scared of. We asked if she was scared of the bed and she pointed under the bed. I asked her if she thought there was something under the bed, and she said "snakes".
For the next few nights, her stuffed animals "stood guard" on the floor making sure nothing would come out from under the bed.
By the coming weekend, we went and bought her a twin captain's bed with drawers underneath, thereby eliminating "under the bed". She loved the bed, we spent a lot of time showing her the drawers, and what was in them (blankets) and explaining that there was nowhere for the snakes to get under the bed. We started a new routine to try and make her more comfortable in her room: dinner, playtime downstairs, bath, playtime in her room, climb in bed to read a few books, then lights out. I stayed in her bed with her until she was asleep and then left the room.
It was working for a little over a week. Then she started waking up as I would leave. Then there was some crying herself to sleep when we enforced her staying in bed. Then the vomiting started again. And now, here we are.
Now, after she's finally asleep, if she wakes up in the night she just comes into our room. We're so exhausted that if it's after about 1AM, we just let her stay in our bed. She can climb over a gate, so that's out. Our doorknobs are oddly shaped, so the childproof things don't work. Aside from putting on a new knob, there's not much else we can do. A few nights, we've even stood outside her door and held the doorknob when we've heard her get up. After a few seconds, she'll go back to bed and cry a little until she falls asleep. And yes, this is all after the vomit-fest. It's so heartbreaking and infuriating all at the same time, but we don't know what else to do.
Two nights in a row (against our better judgment, but it was worth trying), we even let her sleep in it after having cleaned it up once. It didn't phase her at all.
There was no single event that stands out that could have upset her this much to trigger it. The only big thing that had happened around the time it started was Christmas, about 2 weeks prior.
Even the pediatrician says that she checks out fine, and medically, there's nothing that can be done to make her stop throwing up. I didn't expect that they could do anything, but it never hurts to rule out the possibility that they've had cases like this before and have some advice or something we haven't thought of.
She has favorite stuffed animals that she sleeps with, who sometimes get vomit-baths. She has a nightlight and a twilight turtle, and a CD of celtic lullabies that has played on repeat all night since she was a baby.
Through internet research, all I've been able to find are people who had similar issues and just had to wait for it to pass. I hope that's not the case, but it's looking like a definite possibility.
At this point, a friend is looking for referrals for us for a children's behavioral psychologist to see if there's anything that can be done to help change her habits to hopefully nix the vomiting. I have my doubts, but I'm open to trying. This is so hard on all of us. Emotionally, physically...we're just drained. And whether she's doing it on purpose or not, this can't be good for Savannah or feel good on her throat, tummy, and muscles.
I'm not sure where to go from here. We'll see if we get a referral to a psychologist and go from there, I guess. Until then, we're dealing with it as best we can.
It's so hard to hold on to that sentiment amidst the bedtime struggles we've had and continue to have. You just can't reason with a 2.5 year old. At this point, if I could bribe her with a dang pony, I'd do it.
In reality, this has gone on for about two months. It started as just throwing up if we tried to leave the room at bedtime. She would be ok if one of us would lie on the floor next to her bed. Then she'd wake up if we tried to leave the room. Since she caught us trying to sneak out after she was asleep, it transformed into throwing up at the mention of bedtime. Whether we laid in her room or not. She would be lying in bed just fine, look at us, and throw up.
Sadly, we could and still can see in her face that it's intentional. Some nights she would throw up 3 times before everything was up, and there would be dry heaves after that.
She would never tell us what was wrong. She would just cry and say "lie down" over and over again.
We gave it a break. We cheated. We let her fall asleep on the couch watching a movie, and carried her up to bed. The thought was, maybe she would break the habit if we didn't push the bedtime issue for a little while. It was working out okay, it just wasn't ideal. After about two weeks, when we were starting to wonder when we should "try again" with putting her to bed (because be honest, would you be looking forward to going back to potentially being puked all over?), it came to an end. She woke up as Peter was carrying her up the stairs. She looked at him and threw up on him and on the stairs.
The next night, we tried again. More vomit. We sat on the floor with her in her room for half an hour. We asked yet again what was wrong. She finally said she was scared. She pointed to the bed when we asked what she was scared of. We asked if she was scared of the bed and she pointed under the bed. I asked her if she thought there was something under the bed, and she said "snakes".
For the next few nights, her stuffed animals "stood guard" on the floor making sure nothing would come out from under the bed.
By the coming weekend, we went and bought her a twin captain's bed with drawers underneath, thereby eliminating "under the bed". She loved the bed, we spent a lot of time showing her the drawers, and what was in them (blankets) and explaining that there was nowhere for the snakes to get under the bed. We started a new routine to try and make her more comfortable in her room: dinner, playtime downstairs, bath, playtime in her room, climb in bed to read a few books, then lights out. I stayed in her bed with her until she was asleep and then left the room.
It was working for a little over a week. Then she started waking up as I would leave. Then there was some crying herself to sleep when we enforced her staying in bed. Then the vomiting started again. And now, here we are.
Now, after she's finally asleep, if she wakes up in the night she just comes into our room. We're so exhausted that if it's after about 1AM, we just let her stay in our bed. She can climb over a gate, so that's out. Our doorknobs are oddly shaped, so the childproof things don't work. Aside from putting on a new knob, there's not much else we can do. A few nights, we've even stood outside her door and held the doorknob when we've heard her get up. After a few seconds, she'll go back to bed and cry a little until she falls asleep. And yes, this is all after the vomit-fest. It's so heartbreaking and infuriating all at the same time, but we don't know what else to do.
Two nights in a row (against our better judgment, but it was worth trying), we even let her sleep in it after having cleaned it up once. It didn't phase her at all.
There was no single event that stands out that could have upset her this much to trigger it. The only big thing that had happened around the time it started was Christmas, about 2 weeks prior.
Even the pediatrician says that she checks out fine, and medically, there's nothing that can be done to make her stop throwing up. I didn't expect that they could do anything, but it never hurts to rule out the possibility that they've had cases like this before and have some advice or something we haven't thought of.
She has favorite stuffed animals that she sleeps with, who sometimes get vomit-baths. She has a nightlight and a twilight turtle, and a CD of celtic lullabies that has played on repeat all night since she was a baby.
Through internet research, all I've been able to find are people who had similar issues and just had to wait for it to pass. I hope that's not the case, but it's looking like a definite possibility.
At this point, a friend is looking for referrals for us for a children's behavioral psychologist to see if there's anything that can be done to help change her habits to hopefully nix the vomiting. I have my doubts, but I'm open to trying. This is so hard on all of us. Emotionally, physically...we're just drained. And whether she's doing it on purpose or not, this can't be good for Savannah or feel good on her throat, tummy, and muscles.
I'm not sure where to go from here. We'll see if we get a referral to a psychologist and go from there, I guess. Until then, we're dealing with it as best we can.
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