Friday, June 27, 2008

Our Chunk-Gagging Sleeping Beauty

What happened to my great little sleeper?? Emily use to be able to go down for naps right away, without much fuss. She use to also go to sleep for the night really easy without much fussing either.

The past week or so has been H E L L. We have "that" baby that doesn't like to sleep now. Well, she'll sleep, but not without a fight. We can rock her and she can fall asleep in our arms. We can gently put her down in her crib and she is fast asleep. We can walk out of the room so quietly, take a minute to relax and then you hear it...

gurgle gurgle gurgle...

She's turned on her aquarium.

How does that even happen?

Last night it took an hour and twenty minutes before she finally fell asleep. I watched it on the monitor as she was sitting up and then fell over. She was out.

Tonight she was out, even snoring before the gurgle of the aquarium could be heard through the monitor. Maybe we need to take that thing out? She loves it SO much and now that she can crawl and get around, she can play with it however much she wants.

I wonder if it's normal for kids once they become mobile to fight sleep like she is? I can only hope and pray this gets easier...but I wonder if I am only fooling myself?

The other strange phenomenon this 2 foot beauty has is that she won't eat anything chunky. We have been trying to get her to have some finger foods but she doesn't want anything to do with it. We started with puffed rice as a friend of ours recommended it. We put it on her tongue (which I can tell you it really doesn't have a flavor to it) and she started gagging. She didn't swallow, but just started gagging with it on her tongue. Odd. We tried mixing it in her food and she gagged as well. She just doesn't like chunks.

So I thought well maybe it's just because the puffed rice really doesn't have a taste to it. So tonight I cut up some bananas and was SO CERTAIN she'd do wonderfully with it because she loves bananas. Nope. The gagging started. She did manage to get three VERY VERY tiny bits down, but other than that, she was having NONE of it. I even ate some to show her it was okay to eat, but she could care less. Oh the love of a mother! I HATE bananas...but I ate it just for my sweetheart!

Something about chunks makes her gag. I wonder how we'll get around this? She eventually needs to be on solids. I know with her digestive issues that we are severely limited on what we can give her, but fruits and/or veggies would be an easy shoe-in you'd think. I am REALLY hoping she isn't as picky as I am when it comes to food!!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

first, had to pop over from mom bloggers club and give you a little shout. second, i'm sending up a little prayer for you right now because my son is the world's pickiest eater, and he started off just as you described eating bananas with your daughter.

lovely blog! great to meet you!

Anonymous said...

haha - she'll figure it out eventually. Kaylee fought chunky foods for a while, but finally started loving them. Just keep offering them...

Anonymous said...

Hey Denise... don't worry about the gagging, just keep introducing solids to her; all my kids gagged in the beginning. Its totally normal..promise. I even found a linky for you http://parenting.ivillage.com/baby/bnutrition/0,,3w2l,00.html
I started all my kids with soft fruit and cut it pea size..this helped minimize the gag.

As for the aquarium, I would leave it in the crib. Eventually it will help occupy her as she wakes through the night. We count Alex as STTN BUT he still wakes up at least once a night/early morning and he plays then goes back to sleep. Doesn't cry or anything because his crib toys occupy him, we only know he wakes because of how the crib looks after his next waking session.
She is probably finding it self-soothing which can be a good thing.