Two nights without throwing up. And she’s getting closer to going to her bed awake. Last night I laid her down awake, and she stayed calm in her bed for about 5-10 minutes before wanting me to help her. She had peed, and she’s much more aware lately of her bodily functions of that nature. She tells me when she just peed or pooped.
Help! Since coming home from Kansas, Clara has started crying until she vomits either at bedtime or when she wakes in the middle of the night. Clint blames her attachment to me and first said we needed to resolve the situation by me not going in, only him. Last night, he was in and out of her room for an hour and a half before I convinced him to let me go in. It took me another hour to calm her enough that she fell asleep. What she wants is for me to take her to my bed because we’d been doing that on the trip. At first, we wanted to teach her to go to bed on her own in her own bed. That is proving to be to great a task for her to handle all at once. I’m thinking to break it into more manageable chunks by teaching her first that her bed is where she sleeps. If it means I hold her til she’s asleep for a few nights, so that she can sleep in her own bed, that’s ok. Then I will teach her to go to sleep in her bed instead of my arms. Then I’ll try laying her down drowsy but awake and staying in her room, cleaning it up or reading a book until she falls asleep. Eventually, I am hoping to be able to do that but leave before she falls asleep.
Last night we tried letting her cry until she passed out from exhaustion, but it proved to be more crying and vomiting than we could handle. I’ve researched vomiting til crying and there’s basically two camps. One says let her cry and vomit, even to the point of having to sleep in it because she’s doing it on purpose for attention and she has to be taught that it won’t get her the attention she wants. The other camp says if she’s crying and vomiting for attention, then she must need the attention and to help her calm herself down by being with her. I guess I ascribe more to the second camp. I think it’s a phase, brought on by her separation anxiety and her attachment to me in the last few weeks. She tells Clint "No!" when he comes in and she just cries "Mama, Mama, Mama." Last night she cried so long that she was calling, "Daaa" for daddy, and "Nana". Really, she just wanted anyone to rescue her and help her.
I did embrace the first philosophy last night and let Clint deal with her until I could tell that he was at his end. Then I went in and did it my way. He seems to have altered his thinking a bit… and now is ok with doing whatever it takes to get her adjusted back to her own bed, even if it means postponing putting her down awake for a couple of weeks. Tonight I gave her milk much earlier, about an hour and a half earlier, and just gave her a cup of water at bedtime. She accepted it just fine. I’m hoping that will help if she does wake up, she will have had more time to digest the milk and hopefully won’t vomit as easily.
