No Longer in a Crib

It has been just over two months since we had our second child, our daughter Grace.  As I discussed once before, we want our daughters to share a room. Ideally, I think they should share a room until Ginny is 12 or 13. That is quite a few years down the road. Until then, we need to get them ready to share the same space.

Currently, Grace is sleeping in our room, right next to my side of the bed.  I like this set up because I am breastfeeding her. It makes it easy to grab her and feed her in the middle of the night. No midnight runs across the house.  My plan is to continue to do this until she is around 6 months old, when I hope she will be close to sleeping through the night. We'll see.

Ginny is still in the nursery. Instead of buying a second crib, we thought it would make more sense (and save some money) to get a toddler bed instead. Our logic has been that most toddlers transition to a toddler bed (or twin) when they are two years old. Fitting for Ginny because that will be her age when Grace joins her in her room.

The toddler bed arrived at our home about a week after Grace was born.  My husband and my dad (well, he "supervised") put the bed together and in the nursery. Ginny was curious about this new bed. Right away she wanted to climb on it and "read" her books.  This development brought me great hope that transitioning to the bed would go well.

My plan was simply to ease her into the idea, first at nap time then, when she was ready, bed time.  A week later, I made my first attempt to have Ginny sleep in the bed. It did not go well. Ginny climbed in the bed, but didn't want to lay down. I got her to lay down, but then she started to sob. I tried to talk to her about it, but it was a no go. She refused.  So, in she went to her crib.  We tried a few more times over the next couple of weeks, but she wasn't interested.  Finally, one day, she let us leave her there.  I was excited. The excitement was short-lived. Within 15 minutes I heard her banging the drawers on her dresser and bureau. I put her back in the crib after I discovered she had emptied out all of her PJs.

It took another couple of weeks before we tried the toddler bed again. I needed to wait for Chris to child-proof her dresser and bureau. His work schedule can be insane at times, and it took a while before he had a chance to get in there. Until he did, every time we went in the nursery, Ginny was thrilled to grab some books and climb on her new bed.

Ginny got her next chance to take a nap on her toddler bed about a week before Christmas.  I figured it would take a while, and that I would likely need to put her back in the crib.  I was wrong! In under five minutes, there was silence in her room. Absolute silence. I checked in there 10 minutes later.  She was asleep.

Ginny sleeps for the first time in her bed.

The next couple of days she fell asleep in her bed with no issue. Then, after discussing it with my DH, it was decided that Ginny should try and sleep in her bed at night. She was eager to get in her bed. There were no complaints from her. She has been sleeping in her bed ever since. 

Ginny's typical position, stuffed animals and books in bed and her butt up in the air. :)

I didn't expect the transition to move so quickly, but it did. I am grateful it went so easily. I only hope that potty training goes just as easy. My hopes are not that high.

An Expanding Vocabulary

Having a toddler can be fun, frustrating, and amusing.  My toddler, Ginny, has the ability to be all three at once sometimes.  The most amusing and frustrating times with her are when she is trying to communicate with us. There are moments where I swear she is talking to us in sentences that we just can't understand.  Every once and a while, she will throw in a word that we know, but it doesn't help with comprehension.  All you can do is nod your head and agree with her.  I just hope I'm not agreeing to letting her jump off the top of the couch.

Ginny's vocabulary seems to grow daily.  She has surprised me with words that we haven't worked on. For example, a couple of days ago she started pointing to a shirt I was wearing and saying "green."  The shirt was indeed green.  I have mentioned colors to her regularly but this was the first indication that she was paying attention.

What really leaves me amazed is how quickly she is starting to learn new words. In the last week, not only did she show that she knows the word green, but also the words "baby", "more", "bowl", "Barney", and "quack".

Now, this isn't to say that she doesn't confuse things. If Ginny wants to get down from a place, she says "down." If she wants up, she says "down."  We are working on the word "up" still.

Not perfect, but she is slowly making progress. If only she would remember the word "Mommy" like she knows "Daddy," then life would be excellent. :-)

I'm Losing My Mind...

...or maybe I'm just lacking sleep.

For the past 6 weeks and 2 days, I have not slept longer than 4 1/2 hours in a row.  Usually, I only get anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep, waking about 2-3 times a night.  Once in this time period, I actually got 8 hours of sleep with only one interruption!  It was amazing the next morning. It has not happened again.

My sleeping beauty. At least someone is getting sleep.

My lack of sleep is normal.  After all, I have a 6-week-old infant, Grace.  She is adorable and sweet.  In many ways, she sleeps better than her sister did at this age. Most of the time, I am able to cope with my current level of sleep deprivation. Most of the time. However, there are consequences to not getting enough sleep.

I can no longer concentrate for long periods of time. My ability to focus is gone. If I try to concentrate too intently, I'll start to nod off.

Lack of concentration leads to a near-constant inability to understand what is going on around me at the intellectual level. My poor DH will be talking to me, but I don't comprehend what he is telling me a good portion of the time. I have to ask him to repeat things. Even then, I may not "get" what he said at all.

My ability to complete tasks has taken a toll.  I have been considering writing in my blog for a couple of weeks now. I will come up with a topic, but when I go to write it, the topic has disappeared from my brain.  In fact, I was going to write this current blog about something else entirely. About what? I have no clue. I forgot when I started, but then I thought the reason I forgot would be a good topic.

No energy leads to a lack of motivation, too.  I want to bake more cookies for Christmas. I just can't talk myself into exerting that type of energy.  Cooking, even, has become a matter of what is quickest and easiest.  If we had more money, I would likely order out every time it was my turn to cook.

That being said, I was supposed to cook something in the crock pot the other day. I didn't though. Why? I forgot. You see, sleep deprivation leads to issues with my short-term memory. I didn't remember until my DH woke up around 11 a.m. (he is on overnight-shifts this week).

While I may be losing my mind due to sleep deprivation, it is worth it. My darling baby girl is growing and thriving.  Someday, hopefully soon, she will sleep more consistently.  When she starts to sleep better, I will get sleep. Until then, I will make it through with a little bit of caffeine. I hope.