Phase #999

Annaliese helping me garden:

Bright-eyed in the doorway:

Happily (for once) standing in her crib:

Leg lifts and a novel: truly my daughter:

Good thing she's cute as a button.

Call it what you will. The nine-month-regression that takes place because of Week 36's big brain developmental push. The teething. The learning to pull up. The slight fever she had last night (probably related to the teething). But the facts are that Annaliese is charming during the day, more of a little girl every hour that passes, and yet her sleeping habits have gone straight to hell.

Example A: Rubs her eyes, ready for a nap; I put her down. She cries, like normal. Five minutes pass. She quiets--- like normal. The she starts screaming-- not normal. I come into her room to find her standing in her crib.

It stops getting charming real fast. Like when it happens six times in a row before her nap, or repeatedly during the night.

Last night, I coughed and she started crying. Went into her room to find that she had been sleeping on her knees, head touching the mattress, like a Muslim facing Mecca. So tired, and so compelled...

She went from waking for an early morningfeed to waking roughly 4-8 times per night. 

And the part that's hardest to see is that she can't help it. Her body is not letting her rest right now; no matter how tired she is, she rolls onto her stomach, and once on her stomach, she has to sit up, and once she's sitting, she needs to stand. Her teeth hurt. She's hot. She's cold. She can sleep on me but not on her own. She's completely lost the ability to self-soothe herself into sleep.

All-in-all, the nights, they're not so fun. But they're better in one big respect: I know that this will pass. That this is not her choice, that it is a developmental phase, and that soon, this whole brain  madness will pass and she will be back to sleeping soundly from 8pm-7am.

But man, I can't believe how much I was resenting that one early am feeding...