Reading all of this is really bringing back memories of how intense my DD really was... I think I have suppressed a lot of it! But reading the posts about slings and trying the playpen and bouncy chair and on and on I am coming back to a reality check about my DD as an infant. I could have wrote oneisenough's post verbatim. I remember commenting at one point that having babies on the whole really not that expensive especially if you breastfeed, but when you start adding in going to the baby store every few weeks and buying yet another contraption in hopes to appease the little monster to give you some sort of freedom even if it is for only 20 minutes... than the costs went through the roof. Okay we did not buy the vibrating playpen at first but we eventually bought a vibrating attachment in hopes to keep her occupied. Yea worked for a few uses. The bouncy chair was always out in hopes that she would like it. We played the game of move baby to next activity and see if that keeps her attention... never did. And the sling...worked for two days and I could at least go to the kitchen with her in it and have my arms free but than that was useless. It got to the point that I even wondered why we had a crib. My only savior was the swing and I felt like such a bad mother because that is the only place I could get her to sleep at night. But desperate times called for desperate methods. She spent her first 4 months in a swing to sleep. We used it so much that we had to buy a second one.
But we got past the hurdle and time heals all for me anyway because I really have forgotten A LOT of that. We even thought we had a child that was more normal in the sleeping department now, but I have come to discover that that is not true. She goes to bed with no problems but she still does not sleep through the whole night. I learned that on many of my trips with her. She will usually wake up around 3 am or 4 am and play quietly in her bed for an hour or two and finally go back to sleep until 7 or 8 if we are lucky... but she will never yell to get up rather play until we finally go in and get her. I have to say the whole imaginary play really works on our behalf. So she still doesn't sleep that much but is independent enough to allow us ours.
