do what you know.

The past week has been roughhhhhh.  Not at all because of baby C, mostly because of me.  Last Wednesday I came down with a cough, and then a fever, and then the fever stayed, and left, and came back, and left, and came back....over a period of 5 days.  I was miserable.  Luckily my only symptoms were a cough, fever, and extreme exhaustion, or I may have been completely incapable of taking care of myself.  I cried on several occasions because I just didn't have the energy to stop Cadence from crying, all I wanted her to do was sleep and eat--even changing a diaper was too much for me to do at times.

At that point, Cadence also started spitting up a lot more.  Ironically enough, the day I got sick, I thought SHE was sick, so I got to take her temperature "that way" for the first time.  I don't know if I'm proud of this, but she actually didn't mind getting it taken rectally.  (She of course was perfectly fine, other than the spewing of milk.)

Anyway, Cadence had a string of very good days while I was sick, she would take long naps with me, and be able to spend a lot of time just chilling on her back while I tried to get better.  She even rolled from back to front once when she was slightly elevated on a pillow--and she's been really close to getting there several other times--she gets all the way on her side and just hangs out there for awhile :). 

She also started going to bed at 11:00 around this time.  Nothing else in her routine really changed, but I would try to get her ready for bed at 9:30 as I always did, and it just took a lot longer, and she got a lot more upset with my efforts to get her in bed.  It wasn't a big deal, but being sick I really wanted an earlier bedtime (she would sleep until 8, so I was okay with the wake-up time!)  At the advice of some friends, I tried to move her bedtime earlier by a lot--up to 7:30/8:00.  Well, the 3 nights I tried it were easily the most miserable nights I've had with her.  She did NOT want to sleep that early, but I kept trying, she would get mad, eat, spit up, arch her back, scream, hit me, scratch me, you name it--and I in turn would get mad as well, wonder why she couldn't just calm down, cry, etc.  Sounds like fun, huh?

Tonight I tried again, but told myself if she got mad, I would just stop and take her out to the living room to play quietly until she calmed down.  She was much happier once I gave up, and we played quietly until about 9:15 when she got hungry.  I fed her in a quiet place, and put her down to sleep at 9:35, and so far she has woken up once that I can tell from the monitor and just went back to sleep. 

So....what have I learned?  Well, in my desperation last night, I told James that I felt like it was my fault she wasn't going to bed and I was doing something wrong.  I've come to terms with what I already know--every baby's different, and I can't make Cadence be like anyone else's baby.  She is mine, and I love her with all my heart, and I would rather her go to bed at 11:00 than spend 4 hours angry with her because she won't go to bed at whatever time some book says she should.   James told me that I'm the best rookie mom he's ever met, and that he couldn't believe I thought I was a bad mother.   Love that man.

Anyway, now that she's been down for over an hour, it's bedtime for mommy as well.