Ring Around the Rosy

Around and around I go. I feel sometimes like Ruth is on a cycle that I can't break. First, please know that I love my child. But she is slowing stealing our life.

Ruth wakes up every morning around 6:15am. We tried doing what a friend whose baby sleeps until 8am and is content said to do: let her cry and eventually she will get the hint. We tried that for almost two weeks. We would go in, pat her back, put the paci in her mouth and let her cry. She would calm down when we were in the room but as soon as we left, she would throw the paci out of her mouth and cry her head off until 7am when we would pick her up. The only thing that it accomplished was to make Brian and me very mad in the morning and start our day out mad at her, each other and the world and to teach us that Ruth wins again. So now we get up at 6:15am every day and just try to make it through the day not thinking about sleep.

Second, Ruth is currently refusing to eat with the spoon. Now for followers of this blog you know this is a reoccurring theme for us. Every since we couldn't breast feed and she lost weight, feeding has been a source of stress and pressure. In fact, when we went to the doctor this week for her year check up we were told that she doesn't weigh enough to sit forward facing yet. So even though she is long enough and almost too long for the chair, she doesn't weigh enough so she has to continue in the infant care seat.

Ruth also is not really caring for the bottle. At the doctor's office they were very stern with us when they said that by 15 months she needed to be off the bottle. How the heck am I supposed to get that to happen? She will drink out of a sippy but not enough, she is not eating food and most of the self feeding food she is throwing on the ground. Now, she used to love to feed herself and would eat all kinds of things but now it is a fight to get her to eat anything!!! Both my mother and Brian's mother basically said the same thing: don't force her. If we don't, she will not eat!!!! My mother said she will eat when she's hungry. Brian and I do not want to create a child who eats whenever she feels like it. We want her to eat three meals a day (AT MEAL TIME) and two to three snacks a day. In fact, you would think that waking up at 6:15am would mean she is hungry. Nope, she usually doesn't want the bottle then either other than to have a sip.

I am losing my mind. And, I can clean a room and one hour later it looks like a tornado has hit it. Ruth is now screaming because I will not let her play in the trash behind the desk. In fact, she is literally throwing toys around pitching a fit.

Thank goodness I have sewing class today to get a little creative break from this madness. Does anyone child act like this because everyone at church talks about how great their child is sleeping HOURS a day and giving them no problem. Ruth can't be the only kid with a mind of her own.