So I’m in between a mixture of mother’s guilt and serious tiredness.
This is a topic right up there with do your spank your child or not……Leaving baby to cry.
Let’s rewind to pre-ginger days: I was the mother type that naively believed my child he would sleep through at 8 weeks.
Then my DNA produced a child who had reflux, recurring ear infections and eventually grommets! So actually Daniel only slept through really consistently for the first time in November 2012 @ the tender age of 14mths ( hey I was only a year out in my calculations!! )
We did however have to at that stage employ some sleep training, Due to the constant ear and chest infections our little ginger had no idea how to sleep through and if he woke up had no idea how to put himself back to sleep. But since then tho he’s pretty much slept through every night.
But then there is the pearler like last night!!
Ok so let me get to my point. Even though I did employ sleep training ( so am therefore an advocate of letting my child cry for short periods) I have always felt kak about it when something like this morning happens and I wonder if I’m being too hard.
You see the ginger is teething so we’ve had broken nights anyway and on top of it daddy is not here so I’m his only lifeline and as a result he is really clingy as it is. So when he cries he calls out Mommy mommy I feel so much worse because of the single parenting situation at the moment.
This morning however at 4:30am (yes you read right) I was in no mood to entertain conversations or the sound of Barney coming from the TV.
So this resulted in Daniel REALLY crying until I entered his room, him screaming even more when I took him in my arms to try and settle him but did not leave the bedroom, followed by a complete meltdown when I put him back in his cot and walked out after 20min.
Then I lay in bed while he cried (he did eventually stop) and felt so kak about it. Firstly because I had raised my voice at him when we wouldn’t calm down, he then cried Daddy,daddy, to which I replied ‘No use crying for your daddy, go to sleep.’
I’m rambling cos Im just so tired. But I guess I just wonder if I’m being too hard assed in the face of everything that’s going on, but at the same time 4:30am is not an acceptable time to “rise and shine”
Plus fighting with your 20mth old in the wee hours of the morning is bound to make you feel horrid.
I’ll say it again. Roll on next two weeks so we can go back to being a family……this single parenting thing is tough man! Kudos to all you single parents out there!!!
abdoantics 