6-Month Meltdown!

Well, my time is up. Al gave me 2 weeks to get Kalissa on a schedule and do it "my way". If I couldn't get it done, he vowed to step in and do it "his way" -- which means incorporating "cry it out". How'd I do? Let's see, where do I begin? After about the first week of me NOT holding/rocking her to sleep, she was starting to get the idea that she'd have to put herself to sleep. But then she got a cold, thus the photo to the right. This is Kalissa's second cold and like the first one, something in me just wants to baby her to no end. I hear her all congested and I just want to make her as comfortable as possible. She wouldn't sleep in her crib at all but as soon as I picked her up, she'd go to sleep so soundly. I know how it is when my nose is congested -- I'm miserable, so I assume that's how she feels and I need to make it better. This time I did so at the expense of my new training going down the drain.

Friday rolled around and I was not feeling it. I had spent the last 2 nights sleeping on the couch with my baby girl in my arms. Naturally, I was frustrated -- at myself for letting this happen. Once Al got home, I told him that I "had it up to HERE" and that I needed a break. No problem. He stepped in and took her off my hands for a while. Meaning, they played together, he fed her etc. I was baby free. What I didn't do was go nap or read a book...take some me time. No, I didn't do any of that. I still had her in eye sight, I just wasn't interacting with her. At around 8:00 I gave her a bath and then fed her. She was very sleepy and I was looking forward to her sleeping in her crib and sleeping through the night. The girl was KNOCKED OUT. So I tiptoed to her room and put her to bed. No sooner than I got to my room and turned on the monitor, I heard her wailing! WAAAAAAHHHHH! WAAAAAAHHHHHHH! You've got to be kidding me! I looked at Al, he looked at me and said, "I'm going to take a shower". I went to her room and began patting her back (incorporating my new rule of not taking her out of her crib) which had been working fine before the 2 nights of co-sleeping. But not tonight. She got even LOUDER!! For some reason this sent me to LEVEL 10 immediately!! I have never been so frustrated -- no, that's not the right word. I was PISSED! I felt my blood boil. I called for Al. "You need to get her". No response, he's in the shower. I go back to her room. Still screaming at the top of her lungs. This time I yelled "STOP IT! Kalissa! STOP IT!" And now I'm crying. I left her room slamming the door behind me and crawled into bed. She's still screaming. I prayed. I prayed for the strength to deal with her. I prayed not to snap. I got up, took her from her crib and put her in her playpen which is in the living room. That way she can scream all she wanted to without waking up my neighbors. Al is still in the bathroom. No help. I got back in the bed. He finally comes out and asks what the problem was. Me -- exasperated. SHE WON'T STOP CRYING!!! I know what he's thinking -- that I created that monster and now I want him to clean up my mess. Okay fine but now is NOT the time to "I told you so" me.

Al ended up staying up and playing with her until she tired herself out around midnight and she slept all night long in her playpen. I ended up having to wake her up at 6:30 to feed her. The next day, I had to talk to him about the seriousness of the night before. Becoming a mother has increased my patience beyond belief but I now know that I do have a limit. For the past 6 months, Al has let me raise Kali pretty much how I see fit since she is my first baby. I appreciate him letting me have this experience. But I had to tell him that Friday night was no joke. I had warned him that I was feeling overwhelmed. I asked him if I had shouted that there was a fire in Kalissa's room would he have taken his sweet time to assist. Well, there was a fire in her room and its name was Mommy. So sad to admit. I just thank God that He gave me the strength to leave her alone during my moment of weakness.

I would just like to add that I'm 36 with one child. I have daily in-home support from my husband and I don't work a full-time job. My mother had 4 children by the time she was 22, worked 2 and sometimes 3 jobs at a time, and didn't have daily support from our dad. Most times when she reached her "level 10" she wasn't able to leave the room and ask for strength. Experiencing my meltdown gave me a new appreciation for her and sometimes you have to go through things yourself before you can do that.

Okay, so where do we go from here? Well, Al is stepping in. So far so good. Kalissa's cold is subsiding and she's back in her crib. She hasn't had to "cry it out" yet. She's been going right to sleep and pretty much sleeping through the night. I haven't quit cold turkey though...when she does wake up, I go in and pat her back to sleep. It's been working. So far she's been getting up once during the night but she goes right back to sleep after a few seconds of me soothing her. Al also isn't as much of a stickler as he claims to be. After our big Friday night meltdown, this is how I found them during Saturday's nap:

Looks like we BOTH need some discipline!!