Separation Anxiety

It is as though Sumayah has read the manual! According to Baby Sense, "This is the age when separation anxiety starts, and (she) will exasperate you with (her) fickleness of mood. One minute (she) will be playing quite happily on (her) own, and the next (she) will be sobbing inconsolably if you move out of (her) line of vision."

I really though that with me striking the perfect balance between being a part stay-at-home, part working mom, she would overcome her separation issues. When I leave in the morning she is perfectly fine as long as Abegail distracts her when I leave. Yet when I am home with her there are times when she is totally engrossed in her own little play world that she couls care less where I am, and then most other times I can't even move round a corner to reach for something without her crying.

I have come to realise that this may also be the root of our sleeping woes. Yes they still continue. I have not blogged about it for a while because I resumed sleep training last week and was hoping that I could reveal my success after the fact and bring about a change of tone to my blog from gloomy to hopeful. Well it was going well initially. She started taking full 2 hour naps in the day! Night times still had its hourly wakings, but all she required was a little pat and her dummy.

And then, of course, she developed tonsilitis! So all sleep training progress was thrown out the window and I now have to wait for her to be fully recovered before I can start all over again! Of course it doesn't help that I too have a cold, so does Yaasier (even worse that mine) and Bilaal recovering from a cold too!

She has become so clingly I have even dug out the old Baby Sense sling and find myself washing dishes with her in the 'hip hold' position. I really am at my wits end with this whole sleep story. Earlier I read a post on The Reluctant Mom's Blog that was so painfully truthful and honest and I was soooo glad I read it. Sometimes as moms we feel so alone guilty when we experience negative emotions and thoughts toward our children because not only because we love them, but because we are afraid that we will be judged as inadequate, a failure, a bad mother... when really we should realise that ALL moms experience negativity at some time during motherhood. And it is in realising that and confronting the ugliness of our emotions that we are able to seek help. So once again Reluctant Mom... Thank you for your honesty!

First the one then the other!

So just when Bilaal was feeling better from the tonsilitis, Sumayah started with a fever! It started on Friday afternoon, but the fever was quite mild and she was pretty much her usual self, maybe only just a little lethargic, but not to the extent that she couldn't stay awake. She was still eating normally, shouting normally, playing normally. So I put it down to teething. But then Friday night her fever just spiked to 39 degrees! When neurofen, sponging, nakedness and the fan didn't bring the temperature down I started to worry. Her behaviour was pretty much still the same, but on Saturday morning I thought she bit too big a piece of apple and I was trying to fish it out of her mouth, she cried of course and that's when I noticed little white spots at the back of her throat. So off the doctor with us. After examining her the doctor said that Sumayah must have a really high pain threshold because she actually has really bad strep throat and the doctor was really surprised that Sumayah was still eating normally! What can I say the girl loves her food! So was I advised that from now on at the first sign of even illness i should rather take Sumayah to the doctor because she may be the kind of child that won't show any signs of distress even when it's something serious! The doctor really didn't want to give her antibiotics, but there wasn't an alternative. Bilaal finishes his course today and Sumayah finishes hers on Wednesday. But guess what I feel like i'm coming down with something too! NO!!! I refuse! I'm gonna pump myself with vitamins and tissue salts and hope to avoid the nasties in the air. Wish me luck.