Motivational Stickers

Have you ever been stuck at a red light and start reading the motivational stickers on people's bumpers? Well, Cathleya's motivational stickers are a little different.

She's been waking up at either midnight and 5am or 2am nearly every night for the better part of a month. Sometimes its the nightmares, or night scares that cause her to scream bloody murder for no good reason with her eyes shut tight. In those cases it takes about 10-15 minutes to calm her down to a point where I can have a conversation with her, her still being asleep, to find out what's freaking her out. Maybe freaking her out is not the right term. I've learned that when she's doing that, if I can get her to talk, she usually wants something. So I'll ask, do you want this one, that one, what color is it, do you want the other one... Something to trigger her to answer me. One time she wanted a tissue. I said "this one?". She said, "no, the other one." There's no way I was going to pull out every tissue from the box. Sometimes it is something that she had a tantrum about earlier in the day. But after I figure it out she falls right back to sleep and doesn't remember it in the morning. Apparently she gets those from Daddy.

She hasn't had those episodes lately. Recently she'll wake up asking for me. If I don't respond, she'll get out of bed and walk to my bedside to wake me up. "I want you, Mommy." A pregnant mom can only get up so many times. Chris tries to console her but all he gets is a forceful, "I DON'T WANT YOU, DADDY! I WANT MOMMY! GO AWAY DADDY! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!!!!" Chris has learned to say, "okay, I'll stay here with you and wait for Mommy." Sometimes that works and she goes back to sleep. But usually I have to get up and tuck her back in and she tries to keep me in her bed with her all night. Using the excuse "but Mommy needs to use the bathroom, I don't want to have an accident" only works a few times. I would ask her about it in the morning and she'll say something like "Daddy tried to brush my teeth." Or bring up something from the previous day that scared her or got stuck in her memory. I thought it was anxiety about the new baby brother. So I tried easing her mind and saying how its her baby too. She's going to be his only big sister and how special she was going to be for him, she gets to teach baby brother his ABC's and stuff like that. A few days of that and little brother didn't seem to be the issue anymore, but she was still waking up.

Next idea was maybe she needs to pee and when she does it in her pullup that it wakes her up. Okay, no beverages after a certain time. That didn't work either. Maybe sleeping earlier. Might've helped a little but its hard to maintain with our busy schedule.

Last resort. Our friend said her 3-4 year old was having her daddy sleep in the bed with her and the way they broker her of that was giving a sticker every morning that she can sleep on her own. Heck, its worth a try. I horded some Mickey stickers from the dollar bin last year so I still have a few hundred of these smaller than dime sized Mickey stickers on hand. I gave it a try. After the first night, she mostly slept through the night and by herself. First the she tells me in the morning, after climbing out of bed at like 6am to walk to my bedside was "Mommy, I slept through the night by myself, can I have my sticker now?"

Talk about motivation. Its been about a week now and she's around 80% independently sleeping now. Okay, getting her to fall asleep requires me to stay in her bed til she falls asleep, but that's not bad compared to having to do that twice a night. Mommy and baby need their sleep too. I have been trying to tell her that once baby comes, Mommy can't stay in the bed with her all the time, cuz baby will need me too. She needs to share Mommy with baby. But perhaps that's what started this whole sleeping adventure in the first place.

Bribery with stickers. I hope I can find more stickers before I run out.

As for the little dude incubating. He's doing well. He moves a lot. I think more than Cathleya did. Pregnancy has been mellow like the first, but it seems like gravity works harder on me than everything else. I'm gaining about the same as the first time, but it I notice I hold up the belly more often sometimes. Occupational hazard, I suppose. My back is holding up well, so that's good. 6 more weeks til D day.

Any suggestions for a boy's name? We've got one or two in mind, but nothing that screams out "this is the one.'