hello all!

its been a while since i've been on, things are hectic lol. but i need suggestions on a few things. I'm a single mom to a beautiful 14month old girl. I'm also a full time employee and i'm going to school full time (mostly online), so i'm a busy girl.

ok, here's my first question. For the first 6months of my daughters life we slept in the same room, but she slept in her crib. well i moved when she was about 7months to a house where she sleeps in her own room. well the first 2 weeks she did sleep with me b/c we were having rodent problems that i wanted to get rid of before putting her in her own room. well now its been a fight ever since. she will go to sleep in her crib but around 11 o'clock she'll wake up screaming for an hour then she'll go back to sleep and sometime in the middle of the night she usually wakes up throwing fits wanting me to pick her up and put her in my bed. i usually will let her cry for a little bit to see if she will go back to sleep (which she never does) i'll go in there hug her (but not pick her up) and let her cry it out, eventually if i'm standing there she will lay back down and go to bed, but this usually is a 30-1hour process. its driving my crazy. any suggestions?

and here's my second situation. her dad for the past year has been in and out. he was there up until 6 weeks, then he came back around 5months (only for a week) then around 11months he came back for about a month. he gave me a whooping $100 for her birthday but the breaking point was thanksgiving, he invited us over the tuesday before but i never heard from him on thanksgiving, he eventually calling the sunday after but that was the last time i've heard from him. I've heard from the grape vine that he does have another girl pregnant at this time. (oh joy) so i havent yet filed for child support, i'm considering it, any advise?

Well it's about damn time you got back here lady...lol.

Ok so with the bed issues, what docs recommend is going in every 15 minutes and comforting her without picking her up. You spend 2 minutes with her then right back out the door. This is what I had to with Alex when he was roughly the same age as your baby. The first night, he cried off and on for over an hour. The second night he was out after 2 trips to help him calm down. The third night, out cold as soon as I put him down. We also bought a little crib light that was voice activated so when he cried, the light came on and played music to help distract him. Ever kid should have one....lol.

Hi-
I have a 17 month old girl. She slept in a bassinet until about 6 months then I finally set up her crib in my bedroom. She starts out in her crib at bedtime, then usually wakes up and cries a few hours later. I'm sure you know your baby's "crys" and what they mean most of the time. When Sofia cries at night she usually sounds scared. So I always get her and put her in bed with me. I'm still nursing too so she is probably looking for some comfort. To each his or her own and I know crying it out works for some people, but I can't bear to let her cry it out, she just seems to cry harder if I try that. But only you know what will work for your baby.
Plus, that's one of the luxuries of being single, I can do whatever I want with her and don't have to check in with a husband or boyfriend on it first. I have a book, I believe it's called The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley, you may want to try that.

And yes, file for child support! Don't wait any longer, go down to your county child support office and file. I just did a few months ago and it was incredibly easy. I waited because I thought he would do the right thing and pay without a judge's order. Boy was I wrong and he was even getting a little arrogant about it, thinking he could do whatever he wanted and getting away with it. But I see it as my responsibility to make sure my child is taken care of in every way possible so I swallowed my pride and applied.
Her dad is self-employed, so getting him to actually pay is another story but now the county will enforce the order if he doesn't pay.
Hope you find a solution to your baby waking up at night, the sheer exhaustion from staying up with a crying baby is difficult, trust me, every parent knows this.

-Teresa

Meh, Trey sleeps in my bed every night, and I love it. I have a Queen sized bed and have bought him a little footstool so that he can climb up onto it himself. It's so cute, and when I come to bed, he normally partially wakes up and says I love you dadda, cuddle. Then he rolls to me and puts his arm on me and we go to bed.

Of course when I wake in the morning he is sleeping on the dog bed with Layla, but he cuddles with dadda throughout the night. Someday he will be too old to cuddle as it won't be cool any more, and I will deal with that then, but as for now, I love him sleeping in my bed.

-J

Lol thats cute! i love cuddling with her too, but i can not sleep if she's in the bed with me, i have a high bed and every sound has me jumping out of bed thinking she fell off and she likes to curl up underneath me so she takes up 75% of the bed and i get my little corner LOL. so for my sound of mind i have to get her to sleep in her bed.

i know i should file, and the day i found out he is having another one was the day i started thinking about it b/c it makes me mad he's not taking care of this one but he's gonna have another one. He's also self employed so i'm not sure how its gonna work out, but atleast in this state they will revoke your license and arrest you for not paying, and he cant fish or hunt! and its not fair that i'm sitting here struggling pay check to pay check! grrrr

I co-sleep with Hannah and have since she was born...she's 4 now.
Best thing I ever did for her and me...
Absolutely nothing wrong with sleeping with your child and it's good for them.
Your child is used to being in the same room with you and just wants mommy...
Letting a child cry itself to sleep is torture...
Stop torturing your child...
Do some research...plenty of good info on the net.
Almost of the negative stuff you hear about co-sleeping is bunk and I found this out myself.
Children grow up too fast as it is, enjoy their company and their love because they will grow out of it.

"so i havent yet filed for child support, i'm considering it, any advise?"

What are you waiting for...
If he's the father then he's responible to help support her...
Sounds like you need to get your piece of pie before someone else does...

Just My thoughts...

Kajunbaby,

I struggled with this with both my kids. I did the 15 minute thing and it worked great. I'd let him/her cry for about 15 minutes and then go in and I would pick them up, calm them, then explain that they needed to sleep in their own bed, put them down, let them cry and do it again. It only took about 4 nights. During my divorce they got a little more needy and I eased up for a while but then had to go through it all again! (kinda like quitting smoking!) Nick is now six and sometimes I let him sleep with me and sometimes I just wake up and he is there but he usually sleeps in his own bed. Once and a while I let my daughter sleep in my bed also but I explain to them both that it is special and they still need to sleep in their own bed. My problem with them sleeping in my bed is I don't sleep well because they have feet and elbows and knees! Even though I have a king they sleep sideways and hog the whole bed. I definitely agree that it is good for them to sleep with you sometimes. (and for me too!) The way things are now I can pick and choose and that works well for me being rested!

John

so far we've had 2 good nights of mostly sleeping in the crib LOL. she has been sleeping until about 6am in her own bed which makes me so happy. I do enjoy snuggling with her and today we did take a nap together and i did get wakened up by her laughing and smacking me in the face LOL but like i said before, i have a large, high up wooden frame bed, she has fallen off of it once and it wasnt pretty so the fear of her falling off again is in me and so when she does sleep with me i can not sleep b/c every moment i'm popping up making sure that wasnt her falling off the bed. and she is one that likes to snuggle underneath me so in order for me to get comfortable i have to move her every time so i can move. it was just getting stressful the past month has been a fight and getting broken sleep wasnt easy! but hopefully these good nights turn in to more good nights.

but now we are conquering hitting. for some reason she has been wanting to smack everything around. she gets mad at my nephew and is trying to smack him upside the head LOL, its not really funny, but it really is the cutest thing to see. i've been correcting her on it b/c i dont want her going to nursery smacking other kids, so i've been stopping her in her tracks and telling her no. hopefully its a quick habit that doesnt stick around.

Hi Kajun baby & Kayley's mommy-
It looks like our babies are around the same ages. (Sofia was born 8/15/06.)
Well Sofia is at the hitting and pulling my hair stage, too, and it's not very pleasant. She giggles hysterically while slapping me in the face, I think she does it to get my attention. It was cute at first but sometimes it hurts! So now I tell her she can't do that, it hurts mommy, then I take her off my lap. While I was taking her off my lap a few days ago, she accidentally head butted me in my nose. I honestly thought my nose was broken, it hurt so bad. I was practically knocked out with the pain and I think she knew something was wrong because she was very well-behaved for like the next hour. I think just teaching her repeatedly that it's not o.k. to hit or attack someone and she will eventually someday get it.

-Teresa

Okay, yell at me if you want, but Trey doesn't hit anymore. I thought it was cute at first and would let him hit a friend or two, but then he started hitting all the time. I solved this problem the same way I solved him trying to bite, do it right back. I am not saying beat the poop out of your children, but if they smack you in the face, smack them back. Explain to them that it hurts and if they don't like it than neither does anyone else, and make them aware that every time they do it, you will retaliate in kind. I did this with hitting and biting, and Trey has no issues with either....other than the time at daycare when he hit the other boy in the head with a dump truck needing stitches....but that boy took his toy and they fought about it for 10 minutes and daycare did nothing....the question there was who was at fault....All of them. The boy shouldn't have taken the toy, Daycare should have prevented the situation when they heard the boys fighting, and Trey shouldn't have clocked him in the head with a dump truck.....live and learn I suppose.....That is all, carry on.

-J

I did the hit back thing too, and it worked great. My daughter started grabbing my face and scratching it when she was upset so I would grab her face (never in anger and not hard enough to leave a mark but hard enough to get her attention) and ask her if it hurt. She got the message quickly and stopped. My son would hit and I would lightly slap him back but it realy sucked when he said "I thought two wrongs don't make a right, Dad." It still worked.

John

well, what i'm trying to do is to catch her when she does it and make her look at me and let her know that its a "no, no". most of the time she will stop, sometimes she does that little hit afterwards to see what i'm going to do. We were just at my parents house and my nephew was there, now he's 3 and likes to take all toys away from her, lol she went after him, its was the cutest thing you'll ever see but i corrected her, so she went over to the wall and started slapping at that LOL.