Never Take Parenting Advice From Strangers. (Even smart, well-intentioned ones.)

I am so angry with myself right now and feel like the world's biggest piece of crap.

Because I trust them and their wealth of knowledge, I somehow managed to let the IVP convince me that I was wrong about Punk and her needs, and that she was doing her Mama-Only thing because she knew if she cried enough for Jen I would be a sucker and rescue her, and that I was (and this was the one I really took personally) perpetuating a dysfunctional situation for all of us by trying to meet her sleep needs on her terms instead of trying to put her on our terms. And last night and this morning I was basically the worst mama ever.

Jen started out trying to get Punk to bed without the swaddle last night at 7:30. I expected some difficulty because of the time change but between the two of us, and a lot of upset on the part of the Punk who was flailing her body around everywhere yet was exhausted, it took two hours to get her to sleep. And she woke up 30 minutes later. By some miracle, though, she went right back to sleep after I flipped her on her back and gave her a paci. And kept sleeping. I thought maybe they were on to something, and I went to bed. With Jen. In a real bed.

At 1am, Punk woke up and thus begun three solid hours of resettling and having her wake up every 15-30 minutes. I would wait for her to cry, then I would give her the paci and I would get back into the futon. And wait. Over and over. At 4am, I couldn't take it anymore and I asked Jen to take a turn, but when she did, she ended up with 30 minutes of Punk making the most hysterical cries I have ever heard, where she caused herself to cough and cough and cough. It was horrible, so at 4:30 I went back in and she quieted down, so I told Jen to get her a bottle.

She wouldn't even let Jen give her the bottle. Just my handing her off started the sobs again. So I gave her the bottle, sent Jen back to bed, and slept with her on the futon. I had to hold her down because she couldn't settle her body and she slept for two hours with 3 wake-ups. But at least she slept.

This morning I wanted to be consistent and did not swaddle her for her morning nap. After an hour of thrashing around the crib, lots of bonks on the head (and at least 3 bruises, sigh, great mama I am), and too much crying, I swaddled her up, held her for about 30 seconds, put her down in the crib and rubbed her chest for two minutes until she started drooping the eyelids. Then I left while she was still awake. She hasn't made a peep since.

I feel like such a crap mama because I /knew/ she was not ready to be unswaddled and I /knew/ we were doing the best thing for her and I let other people who have never even met her and did not understand her needs convince me otherwise. And because of that, my kid is sleep-deprived and has bruises all over her forehead.

I pretty much hate everything right now.

Things that are awesome:

When I was in Boston the other weekend, stacy knitted Punk the most adorable little baby sweater that is so fashionable. I need to take pictures of it to show you. It is really quite awesome, especially the casual way she said, "Hey, I improvised the pattern in my head and kind of made it on the train today," because umm, I have no craft skillz and find hers quite impressive indeed. And it's always nice when cool people think of my cool kid.

Similarly, my cool cousin (the queer one on my dad's side that I love as opposed to the queer one on my mom's side that I haven't seen since I was about 10) who lives in Seattle sent me a bag of coffee beans. I haven't ground them up yet but Oh Em Gee they smell so frickin' good I can hardly stand it. I just kept sniffing the bag all day and thought about eating some beans. SO GOOD. So delicious and lovely. And considering there isn't a lot of sleep happening in here, so good in the timing department.

Spontaneous presents rock! <3 <3 <3 <3

~//~

Also. I am madly in love with crushinator. He invented Judecorp, after all. Man, I have mad Columbus love. I want to visit.