The Dark Phase

This post contains no pictures and will probably be boring to read, but I want to remember this in case my future children go through this phase so that I can be assured that there is an end.

When I first started staying home with Molly at the beginning of the summer it was great. We spent our days doing fun stuff, Molly was her normal bubbly and happy self and I was feeling great. Seriously, sunshine and unicorns.

Then the 4th of July came and Molly went through a very sudden and unpleasant change. She all of a sudden was absolutely terrified to be alone, especially in her bed. She screamed like she was being tortured when we laid her down at bedtime, woke up constantly in the the night and naptime was a distant memory. Unfortunately this coincided with me being in the first hellacious weeks of pregnancy. There were a lot of tears cried in this house. I needed her to sleep because I needed to sleep and it just wasn't happening. She was absolutely nuts if I would even leave the room to get a drink of water. Every noise panicked her and she was like a clinger monkey anywhere in public. I took her to our WONDERFUL pediatrician at the end of July and she reassured me that this was a phase, it was normal, and that Molly would eventually come out of it.

I was not convinced. I'm not kidding when I say it was the worst phase of parenting I have ever experienced. I felt so sad for her that she was so upset, but at the same time it was exhausting and draining and I became comvinced that it was because I was staying home with her full time and she was better off in daycare. Not good times. I'm not generally a crier, but man I was a mess.

We initially tried the tough love technique of letting her cry it out at bedtime and nap, but she would literally cry the entire 2 hours of nap and 2-3 hours at bedtime before eventually passing out. This was taking a toll on all of us because she was constantly exhausted and as parents, you can only listen to so much screaming and crying. So...we abandoned that idea and decided that for the time being while she was so fragile we would just sit with her in her room until she fell asleep. This was initially much better because she went to sleep right away and she was much happier, however the downside was that we were having to go into her room 3-4 times a night to sit with her until she fell asleep. Not great. I can totally see why parents end up with kids in their beds because there were many nights where it was so tempting to just throw her in bed with us so everyone could get some sleep.

Around the first of September she started to seem a little more emotionally stable and it seemed like the staying in her room until she went to sleep was creating a little monster who wanted to play peek a boo and try to make us laugh instead of falling asleep so we decided to go back to the cry it out approach, but this time we weren't so strict. We just kind of took it day by day and did what felt right. I am happy so say that since September 3rd she has slept all the way through the night with the exception of two nights. When we put her to bed at night she doesn't even cry and at nap she cries/chats but there isn't that true distress anymore. She is so much less clingy and jumpy and seems to just be back to herself.

I think that this is a combination of it truly being a phase (like EVERYONE tried to tell me) and also I have become more stable as I have moved into the 2nd trimester. I am a bit more rational in my thinking and reactions and I think that Molly can pick up on that. I definitely learned throughout this process that there isn't always a quick solution and sometimes what works on one day may not work the next.

Also, I would like to apologize to anyone who was on the receiving end of my irrational, emotional outbursts during this dark, dark phase.