Sunday, March 25, 2012

Single Mom with an awake baby!

So this is the first time that I have actually felt like a single mom. For all of you mom's or dad's that are raising a child on their own, I don't know how you do it. Patrick is working overnight in the Tri-Cities for the next couple of nights so that means I have Riley. Unfortunately I am working 12 hour shifts as well so my parents, my mother in law and my sister are helping a ton watching Riley, I don't know what I would do without my family!
Anyways coincidentally this comes as perfect timing for Patrick as we are trying to get Riley to sleep in the crib and last night I was up with her almost at every hour. She didn't need anything, mostly just wanted to know I was still there. I guess I need to read some books in my spare time (haha) on how to do this. Should I let her cry it out in the middle of the night and self soothe or should I just run in there and put her binkie back in, let her know I am there and she falls right asleep again. I did the second option when she was in her bassinet and it turned out great, she knew she was taken care of and eventually stopped waking up at night for that comfort. We did attempt the crying it out method about a week back when she was being especially fussy before bed and she ended up screaming for 25 minutes until I couldn't handle it anymore and picked her up, the instant I picked her up she snuggled into my arms and passed out, I had her in bed in less than 5 minutes.
I guess this will just have to be trial and error just like everything else has had to be. Riley never seems to go by the book on anything so I suppose that is worthless to even try. On the plus side I do let her come and snuggle with me in the morning (it has become a ritual as soon as daddy leaves) and she sleeps great, usually wakes up to play for 10 minutes and then wants a nap again soon after for a couple of hours.

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