I Love You Madly (or WAAAAAAA!)

It's been quite the week at the Webster-Stoppel household. We have several things to report, and for the first time, we had to have a discussion about whether or not we should put something on the blog. It wasn't too personal or too controversial. No, it may be too gross. Seriously...but we'll come to that later.

Let's go back to the beginning: It all started last Thursday. It had been a perfectly normal day, which for us means nothing worth blogging. Then, we put Maddie to bed, and as soon as I left the room, she started screaming. I don't just mean she was fussing or even really crying. She was screaming. I waited about five minutes, but when it still didn't stop, I went in, put her pacifier back in, rubbed her back, and left again. Once more, when the door shut, the screaming started. The second time I went in, she was sitting up in her crib, tears pouring down her little face, looking at me like I just killed a puppy in front of her. This time, I picked her up and rocked her, calmed her down, and put her back in bed, but again, as soon as I left the room, screaming. I finally ended up nursing her again, until she fell asleep.

Repeat, Friday night, Sunday night, Monday night, and Thursday night of this week. If she wasn't so exhausted from her day (or from doing exactly the same thing during her second nap--not the first, only the second--at daycare, thus taking no nap) that she fell asleep while nursing before bed, she screamed as soon as we left the room. Those of you who are parents know where this is going: Yes, we have entered separation anxiety territory.

For those of you who don't know, separation anxiety usually occurs when a child figures out that Mom and Dad (or whomever he/she is most attached to, which in our case includes Laura, our daycare provider) exist separately from them. Once this clicks, mentally, the child realizes that Mom and Dad can leave, but unfortunately, he/she doesn't make the connection that Mom and Dad will come back. Children going through this stage of development believe that when their parents leave the room, they may never see them again, which is obviously terrifying.

In Maddie's case, this may have been exacerbated by the fact that she's teething, and we think she just finished up a growth spurt, but it was stressful for everyone, none the less. We've spent the last 8+ months teaching her to put herself to sleep, and we didn't want to ruin it all now, so we've decided to go with the cry-it-out method. (Note: Someone at work was kind enough to tell me that by letting Maddie cry-it-out, I was increasing her risk of SIDS. People can be so kind...) It's not easy, listening to your daughter scream for you for 20 minutes, but she does eventually settle down and go to sleep, and she's still sleeping through the night, so that's good.

The rest of our, um, interesting, week will follow in the subsequent posts.

P.S. - We think it may be resolving now, but since I've typed this, it'll probably come back full-force tonight. I walk on the wild side, people; I tempt fate.