![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Ngala, sleep, life
Sep. 23rd, 2010 09:22 pmI went to the Ngala course on managing toddlers and new babies, and I found it quite helpful.
There were some practical suggestions – putting the most mobile one into the car first. But mostly I found it helpful in that it made me think about why Margaret does not want to go to sleep without being in constant physical contact with me over a period of hours. I think it stems from:
· Insecurity arising from the knowledge that she will have a sister soon. She definitely has very mixed feelings, demonstrated in the combination of kisses and bites she puts on my tummy.
· Insecurity arising from missing me while I am at work. Luckily this will end soon – can’t wait! I cannot wait!
· Also, she is becoming increasingly independent which she enjoys but it also frightens her, I think. She and I have a very close dynamic because of her having been sick (and having been carried about so much)* and because there is no other adult to disrupt my attention being focused on her. Changing that is a big thing for her (and me).
So really I am now in a place where I just think that I must accept that she does not sleep, because staying awake with me is meeting her emotional needs. And hope that this may perhaps change when I stop work.
On one hand, this is good in that it suggests that we could just wait til Margaret becomes less upset. No action required.
On the other hand, we are both 1-2 hours short of sleep ever day so we are both constantly upsetting each other and over-reacting. Also, she may rally when I stop work but then she will get significantly less attention once her sister is born, so it’s not much of a long-term plan.
All the books on sleep say blah, blah, routine, blah, blah, consistency. Well, she has the same routine she has always had – she is just refusing to go down when she used to and staying up instead (and crying hysterically when I leave the room and then getting even more upset because she face is ‘sticky’).
So I guess I’ll give Ngala another call and see what advice they have on her sleep specifically.
· I do wonder, too, what life felt like for her when she was younger. I could tell that she was frustrated when she saw other kids doing things that she wanted to, but how does it feel to be so weak that you can’t roll over when you want to? Can’t reach for toys when you want them? She seemed to cope pretty well, I think. She certainly wasn’t cranky about it and she often used work-arounds like using me as her surrogate (she would push my hand into the position to ring the bell on the activity centre and then push down to show me when to ring it) or using primitive tools (like using blocks or sticks to reach for toys that were out of arms reach).
There were some practical suggestions – putting the most mobile one into the car first. But mostly I found it helpful in that it made me think about why Margaret does not want to go to sleep without being in constant physical contact with me over a period of hours. I think it stems from:
· Insecurity arising from the knowledge that she will have a sister soon. She definitely has very mixed feelings, demonstrated in the combination of kisses and bites she puts on my tummy.
· Insecurity arising from missing me while I am at work. Luckily this will end soon – can’t wait! I cannot wait!
· Also, she is becoming increasingly independent which she enjoys but it also frightens her, I think. She and I have a very close dynamic because of her having been sick (and having been carried about so much)* and because there is no other adult to disrupt my attention being focused on her. Changing that is a big thing for her (and me).
So really I am now in a place where I just think that I must accept that she does not sleep, because staying awake with me is meeting her emotional needs. And hope that this may perhaps change when I stop work.
On one hand, this is good in that it suggests that we could just wait til Margaret becomes less upset. No action required.
On the other hand, we are both 1-2 hours short of sleep ever day so we are both constantly upsetting each other and over-reacting. Also, she may rally when I stop work but then she will get significantly less attention once her sister is born, so it’s not much of a long-term plan.
All the books on sleep say blah, blah, routine, blah, blah, consistency. Well, she has the same routine she has always had – she is just refusing to go down when she used to and staying up instead (and crying hysterically when I leave the room and then getting even more upset because she face is ‘sticky’).
So I guess I’ll give Ngala another call and see what advice they have on her sleep specifically.
· I do wonder, too, what life felt like for her when she was younger. I could tell that she was frustrated when she saw other kids doing things that she wanted to, but how does it feel to be so weak that you can’t roll over when you want to? Can’t reach for toys when you want them? She seemed to cope pretty well, I think. She certainly wasn’t cranky about it and she often used work-arounds like using me as her surrogate (she would push my hand into the position to ring the bell on the activity centre and then push down to show me when to ring it) or using primitive tools (like using blocks or sticks to reach for toys that were out of arms reach).
