Sunday, January 29, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Sleeping
I just watched a webinar on Toddler Sleep Issues.
Sleep is still not her strong point. We usually start her bedtime routine around 8:15 and she's asleep around 9:45pm, after I spend about an hour lying with her (and falling asleep much of the time). Then she wakes up at 6:30am. It's like she has this internal clock. None of us can figure it out. It's still dark and it's not like we have roosters outside.
She still is nursing to sleep for her nap and will nap 30 minutes to 1 hour usually before I rush into nurse her to sleep longer. Total time is 1.5-2 hours. When she's sick, I try to nurse her again and again to get her back to sleep. I don't think I have any milk. It's just like being a human pacifier. Although a couple months ago, when I was showering right after, I noticed I did have milk, so who knows.
Anyway, it's a rough life, constantly watching her from pre-dawn to way past when other kids are long asleep. We have no down time. AT ALL. Lately, my tactic for dealing with it is to try to shower during the afternoon and then brush my teeth before I put her to sleep, since it puts me to sleep. But most of the time, I have to drag myself up, change, brush, and go back to bed.
It's also unique because she is not in a crib. The sleep webinar (and I've heard this from another sleep expert) said that kids are not ready for the bed until age 2.5-3 typically. The reason is they don't have the control and discipline to know to stay in bed. Otherwise, they'll just get out of bed repeatedly. Which is why it takes forever to put her to bed!
The sleep webinar did offer a few tips:
1) Kids with sleep challenges are born that way. Temperament plays a key role. (and we thought it was our bad parenting skills!) She mentioned that highly aware and high IQ kids may have problems sleeping. They take in everything and their brains are extremely active, which is why their brains don't settle well for sleep. I had read that somewhere else before, and Sierra definitely fits the bill. (though I wonder if all parents with kid sleep problems think this ;) ) Josh actually has this problem too (where he can't sleep because his mind wanders, is the way he describes it) but has learned to live with it. They tend to take a long time to fall asleep because they are thinking & reviewing the day each night. So tip #1 was to review the day with her during her bedtime routine, and get a head start on this. Do an EMOTIONAL review and talk about her feelings (e.g., remember how you were upset that blah blah happened?) and not just facts.
2) For early wakers, it will take a LONG time to break this one. 3-6 weeks. Every day, you just have to add another 5 minutes when you refuse to let her out of bed, under all circumstances. She will scream and throw tantrums, but just do it.
3) For delay tactics, come up with a mantra and repeat it. Do not succumb.
There were more but I'm not sure how much it adds to this blog...
Added 10 minutes later: I just realized #1 is impractical since I don't even spend my weekdays with her (Ayi does) so have no idea what happened, at least not the details.
Sleep is still not her strong point. We usually start her bedtime routine around 8:15 and she's asleep around 9:45pm, after I spend about an hour lying with her (and falling asleep much of the time). Then she wakes up at 6:30am. It's like she has this internal clock. None of us can figure it out. It's still dark and it's not like we have roosters outside.
She still is nursing to sleep for her nap and will nap 30 minutes to 1 hour usually before I rush into nurse her to sleep longer. Total time is 1.5-2 hours. When she's sick, I try to nurse her again and again to get her back to sleep. I don't think I have any milk. It's just like being a human pacifier. Although a couple months ago, when I was showering right after, I noticed I did have milk, so who knows.
Anyway, it's a rough life, constantly watching her from pre-dawn to way past when other kids are long asleep. We have no down time. AT ALL. Lately, my tactic for dealing with it is to try to shower during the afternoon and then brush my teeth before I put her to sleep, since it puts me to sleep. But most of the time, I have to drag myself up, change, brush, and go back to bed.
It's also unique because she is not in a crib. The sleep webinar (and I've heard this from another sleep expert) said that kids are not ready for the bed until age 2.5-3 typically. The reason is they don't have the control and discipline to know to stay in bed. Otherwise, they'll just get out of bed repeatedly. Which is why it takes forever to put her to bed!
The sleep webinar did offer a few tips:
1) Kids with sleep challenges are born that way. Temperament plays a key role. (and we thought it was our bad parenting skills!) She mentioned that highly aware and high IQ kids may have problems sleeping. They take in everything and their brains are extremely active, which is why their brains don't settle well for sleep. I had read that somewhere else before, and Sierra definitely fits the bill. (though I wonder if all parents with kid sleep problems think this ;) ) Josh actually has this problem too (where he can't sleep because his mind wanders, is the way he describes it) but has learned to live with it. They tend to take a long time to fall asleep because they are thinking & reviewing the day each night. So tip #1 was to review the day with her during her bedtime routine, and get a head start on this. Do an EMOTIONAL review and talk about her feelings (e.g., remember how you were upset that blah blah happened?) and not just facts.
2) For early wakers, it will take a LONG time to break this one. 3-6 weeks. Every day, you just have to add another 5 minutes when you refuse to let her out of bed, under all circumstances. She will scream and throw tantrums, but just do it.
3) For delay tactics, come up with a mantra and repeat it. Do not succumb.
There were more but I'm not sure how much it adds to this blog...
Added 10 minutes later: I just realized #1 is impractical since I don't even spend my weekdays with her (Ayi does) so have no idea what happened, at least not the details.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
SHE just spent the last 10 minutes retelling nursery stories in Chinese
We got some of this on video too. Note in the video that at the end she starts talking about the 3 bears and the baby bear's toys, which isn't the story, but she told the story earlier (before we started recording.) She actually let us record it and didn't just run up to the camera, like she usually does. She is getting the idea and enjoying recording videos and pictures of herself... but she always runs up and wants to look afterwards.
We just got this book (Richard Scarry's nursery tales) last Thur from the library and I read her these stories in English. Here she is telling them in Chinese! (I think gran might have read some in Chinese to her, but definitely not as much as she is saying.)
Saturday, January 21, 2012
SHE's drawing the three bears and goldilocks
There are a few Richard Scarry books that Sierra really likes these days. I brought home a few from the library last time, and even more this time. Last time, she really liked The Best Word Book Ever, especially the page showing the house with all its contents/activites, the page with the actions (especially the mouse falling "diao le!" she would point out), and the page with the elephant taking a bath and going to bed. This time, she really likes the nursery tales book. She really enjoys me telling the stories of Little red riding hood, The gingerbread man, The three little pigs, and ESPECIALLY Goldilocks and the three bears, and this goat story (that I'd never heard of), in which the mommy goat puts rocks in the wolf's bag & tricks the wolf into thinking they are kids. She LOVES the part where the wolf is shocked to find rocks inside! She smiles and chuckles at this part.
Sierra enjoying stories and not just us pointing out things on each page is a more recent development. She still notices and asks about all kinds or random little details on each page though (like this cup of toothpicks on the dining table in the Moonlight book.) I don't think she's ever seen a real toothpick, but I'll have to show her one of these days!
Here she is drawing the 3 bears and Goldilocks (from the the Richard Scarry book on the left) on her magnadoodle. Each character is getting progressively smaller as there is no room for them. :)
Monday, January 9, 2012
Vacation to Gran's 12/29-1/5
We went for a week to Gran's to see if her congestion (possible allergy) improved.
Thurs 12/29:
arrival.
Friday:
rained. Josh assembled new step2 kitchen. "Daddy, is the kitchen done yet?" again and again...
Saturday:
Oakland zoo.
She loved the chimpanzees running around with the toddler toys. She said "Ra ra has that!" to the Little Tikes Cozy coupe and the Fisher Price Stride to Ride lion. She LOVES recognizing toys she or her friends (e.g., Jaden or Robbie) have. More on this later under Totland.
Alameda's Christmas tree lane at night.
Sunday:
Rose Garden and playground by Rose Garden. There was a cable car in the sandbox. She called it the bus and enjoyed pretending to drive it.
She kept saying "hi" to other toddlers but they ignored her. I think they were not talking yet.
Back to Alameda's Christmas tree lane at night. She woke from her nap and said she wanted to go to Gran gran's Christmas tree lane again, so we went.
Monday:
Totland. This is a toddler only park in Berkeley and she LOVED it!
[To be filled in later.]
Tuesday:
Oakland Chinatown. Her first trip to any Chinatown. Gran showed her, among other things, live fish and frogs (poor frogs) crowded in tubs.
Wednesday:
Back to Totland.
Thursday:
Drove home.
Thurs 12/29:
arrival.
Friday:
rained. Josh assembled new step2 kitchen. "Daddy, is the kitchen done yet?" again and again...
Saturday:
Oakland zoo.
She loved the chimpanzees running around with the toddler toys. She said "Ra ra has that!" to the Little Tikes Cozy coupe and the Fisher Price Stride to Ride lion. She LOVES recognizing toys she or her friends (e.g., Jaden or Robbie) have. More on this later under Totland.
Alameda's Christmas tree lane at night.
Sunday:
Rose Garden and playground by Rose Garden. There was a cable car in the sandbox. She called it the bus and enjoyed pretending to drive it.
She kept saying "hi" to other toddlers but they ignored her. I think they were not talking yet.
Back to Alameda's Christmas tree lane at night. She woke from her nap and said she wanted to go to Gran gran's Christmas tree lane again, so we went.
Monday:
Totland. This is a toddler only park in Berkeley and she LOVED it!
[To be filled in later.]
Tuesday:
Oakland Chinatown. Her first trip to any Chinatown. Gran showed her, among other things, live fish and frogs (poor frogs) crowded in tubs.
Wednesday:
Back to Totland.
Thursday:
Drove home.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)