What a week!!! (Update)

We have had a rough week with all the changes around our house. Grace kind of crashed and took a nap on Saturday and Sunday but I feel like be Monday we went backwards. Adam had school all day and I worked Monday night. I laid Grace down for a nap and she started her getting up continuously and screaming crying. When I laid her down I told her not to get up and when I started to walk out of the room she started acting panicky and trying to quickly get out of the bed. I tried staying in the room with her or standing at the door and she kept turning to look at me to see if I was still there. She acted like she was terrified to go to sleep or for me to leave her. I was losing my patience this day and got on to her multiple times for not staying in the bed and I kept telling her it was okay. I tried multiple things including letting her lay down with me but she was refusing to even lay down in the bed. Then she got so upset she climbed over the end rail of her crib and hit the floor. I didn't understand why she did this but I was very concerned for her safety. After that is when I tried laying her down with me. That night she did okay. On Tuesday she climbed over the rail again and hit the floor and so we took the toddler rail off and made her crib a day bed to make it clear to her that she could get out of the side of the bed instead of climbing over the rail. By Wednesday night she climbed out and hit her head so we had no other option but to put her mattress on the floor and we got her to sleep by sitting in the door way and waiting till she went off to sleep before we left. She knew that her 'bed' wasn't right but was so tired! The next morning she woke up at 3:30am and wouldn't go back to sleep in that bed so Adam brought her to bed with us and she finally went back to sleep for a little bit.

As far as nap time, Tues, Wed, and Thurs. of this week went about the same. I spent almost 3 hours of back and forth trying different things to get her to go to sleep. Including sitting in the room with her in the rocker and laying at her bedside and sitting in the doorway on the computer and kept telling her that it was okay for her to go to sleep and that I wasn't going to leave her. She acted like she really wanted to go to sleep but was just scared to. I knew she was exhausted. I was exhausted and discouraged to say the LEAST! By yesterday afternoon she had refused to nap all day and was very ill and whiny. Then while she was sitting in the recliner with me she fell fast asleep and slept for 45 minutes. This is VERY unusual for her. She use to only sleep in a bed. All of this was really catching up with her. When she woke up, she was screaming crying again and was INCONSOLABLE! She was throwing her body every which way and didn't want ANYTHING. Didn't want milk, food, paci (with the hole, which she has still been using), etc. She was grabbing at her neck and I was concerned that something was wrong with her (either she had hurt her self from one of the falls (hitting her head) or that something else was going on. It was right at 5 pm, so I quickly called my Pediatric Doctor who is right by our neighborhood and they let me bring her in to be checked out immediately. (They were about to close). The Doctor looked at her and thought that her now terror of going to sleep, and other behaviors is probably the result of a few things. We all agreed that this all started when we put a hole in Grace's pacifier. It also seems that she may be having night terrors and especially since she is sleep deprived she is prone to more of them. It also seems that she has some of her last molars coming through which definitely may be affecting behavior, etc. too. Also, stress of the two transitions of her bed and pacifier occurring at once. Of course now, sleep deprivation is in the picture.

The Doctor recommended us going ahead and giving her a pacifier back that doesn't have a hole in it to give to her just when she sleeps. She thought that may be best while she is trying to get use to the change in bed. I really hated to do this because it really seemed that she was getting use to the pacifier with the hole in it but we were at the point of desperation. So we went and got her new pacifiers for bedtime. She acted like she didn't really care for it much when we got it but seemed to warm up to it later (at bedtime). We had also decided that we weren't going to attempt the transitioned crib ANY MORE because it was scaring us to death when we heard her hit the floor so hard from going over the end rail. The mattress on the floor wasn't working either and we thought that getting her a special (low to the ground) toddler bed would be good for her. We thought we could get it in a 'character' that she knew and liked and she would think it was 'neat' and 'fun' to lay in the bed again. Needless to say, in desperation, we went out and got a toddler bed at Walmart last night. It is a Dora Bed and she LOVES it! She kept climbing in it and playing in it and kept yelling "DORA!!" She was still skeptical about going to sleep last night and Adam had to stay at her bedside until she went to sleep. She slept until almost 6am which is an improvement but not as good as before.

Today, she has still been dazed and ill from being so tired. After a trip out, she fell asleep in the car right before we were about to get home and I was trying to get her to stay awake. She was "out"!! I brought her in and nothing woke her until I laid her down and then she started to cry a little and I stayed with her and she laid her head down and fell asleep immediately. She slept a total of 1 and a half hours today!! I can already tell she feels so much better.

I have to say this has been about as bad as her colicky days in the very beginning. It was even more discouraging because every since then she has been such a great baby. She LOVED to sleep and this just threw us ALL for a loop. Thankfully, I think it is getting better and I know with time.. it will all work out. Thanks for your concern you all!

Sorry, I was so long winded... I feel like this doesn't even sum it all up:)