What was I thinking doing these two things at the same time? I have no idea. When I get the schematics for my time machine I'm going back to Sunday and shaking some sense into myself. But for now, since I've started I can't back down.
Since Amelia was 10ish weeks old she has been sleeping in her own crib in her nursery every night without issue. However, during the day when she needs a nap I {and Cheyenne on the weekends} have always allowed her to sleep on my chest. Usually while I too napped. None of us have an overt problem with the situation, in fact, we all enjoy it. However, she's a year old now and can't go on only being able to nap on me; for a few reasons {I could be using that time to get my work around the house done, she could use a nap in what has to be a more sleep conducive environment, she wont be allowed to take her naps on me down the road when there is a sibling that also needs naps, she wont be allowed to nap on her preschool teacher when the time comes, etc} so I decided to use my sleep training techniques on her during the day for naps.
The thing is, sleep training a 4 month old at night is a horse of a totally different color than sleep training a 1 year old during the day. The fact that she can stand up and scream louder and call for me by name {MAMA} does not help matters. The technique that I used when she was being moved from our bed to hers cant really be used because it's, for lack of a better term, too gentle. Going in to lay her back down every 5 minutes only fuels her fires of fury. So after 2 days of this I had to break down and use the much loathed Dr. Ferber "cry it out" method. From 10:30am-11:00am she screamed like someone was stabbing her to death {I checked, no stabbing took place} but then after 30 minutes she finally gave up breaking my heart and fell asleep taking an almost 2 hour nap. Tomorrow we'll go through the same thing but if I'm lucky she'll only cry for 20 minutes, then 10, then 5, and eventually she'll just settle down for her nap in the crib they way she calmly settles into it at night.
The move from bottle/breast to cup has been equally hard and the crankiness from it is most likely not helping the nap issues. Drinking/eating from breast/bottle is Amelia's biggest comfort habit - she reaches up and plays with her hair while drinking/eating and falls asleep or zones out while I'm left holding/supporting the bottle/boob. She doesn't make any effort to hold on for herself, she keeps her hands firmly implanted in her hair.
I can take it no more. I look at other children the same age who drink their milk out of a cup with pure envy. Deciding to wean her to cows milk has gone hand in hand with moving her over to a cup. We decided that she can keep her first and last drinks of the day in bottle form since those will be the hardest to give up. Our pediatrician said that it would be best to go cold turkey for all other bottle times though and that if she wants a drink badly enough she'll get used to the cup. I've stood my ground but our little one has a determination like none other and seems to be attempting to call my bluff.
Needless to say it's been a long, hard, cranky week...and it's only half over!
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