Saturday, February 21, 2009

Sibling rivalry already

The baby hasn't even gotten here and she and Ava are already fighting over space. Ava co-slept with us when she was an infant all the way until she was about 6 months or so. We put her in her crib after that and she stayed put until she was able to get out. When she was about two years old, we took the side rail off her crib and then she would come down in the middle of the night to climb in bed with us. It didn't really bother us too much. Except when she wasn't in a snuggle mood and she would much rather kick and thrash in the middle of the night. Most of the time though, she would snuggle and it's been nice. She's still coming down now. I do love snuggling with her, but with this belly getting bigger and bigger and with the fact that I have a hard time getting comfortable and being able to sleep anyway, this is getting really hard. A couple times I've had to go sleep on the couch. We have a queen sized bed and Todd takes up half, Ava takes up 1/4th and I get the last 1/4th. If I was a size 2 preggo this would be fine. But my rear takes up about the same amount of room as my belly. There is NO room. I've been trying to get Ava to stay up in her room all night, and sometimes it works. But sometimes she puts on the water works and she's had a bad dream and she's scared, so it's hard just leaving her in there when she wants to be near you. So it's already a struggle.


Now lets add a tiny little problem to that. This little sister of hers is going to be taking up her spot very soon. We will be co-sleeping with this one too, mainly because we have to. We don't have a nursery for her, so she'll have her bassinet in our room and she will co-sleep as well until we move. So, I'm seeing the jealousy start immediately. I'm not sure how this is going to work. But I'm praying it will without too much hassle. I feel bad for Ava especially because I don't want her to feel like she's being put aside. Ugh. I'm dreading that part.

1 comments:

Rebecca said...

My suggestion would be (not that I'm an expert or anything) to get Ava to understand she is a big girl and needs to stay in her bed BEFORE the baby arrives. I'd really focus on it the next few weeks - that way she just accepts it and doesn't make the connection to it having ANYTHING to do with the new baby.

And I can hardly sleep in a KING bed - I have NO idea how you do it with a queen!!! I take up 2/3 of the bed and leave rick with about 1/3 (well, maybe 1/4 if you ask him....) He doesn't mind (too much) because he doesn't move much when he sleeps and will sleep through anything!