3rd child the hardest night time screamer

 Our third child and the first daughter LM turned 2 years old a while ago. She has been a delightful rug rat. She's very active physically, started walking way before she turned one year old. She seems fascinated to many things, a little too much, so that she can't help but touching, moving those things around, ends up causing the greates mess among our 3 kids. Her two brothers are old enough to understand how incapable she is, so both of them adore her, being very nice to her, trying to help her.

In the way we've raised her so far there are some major differences from her brothers -- My wife m is always home at night so that she can stay with LM. For the boys, m wasn't home typically twice a week for her work, and on the days when she's home she was so exhausted (to the level a little inhumane). But LM was born in m's post medical residency job (they call it Fellowship), and in her Fellowship, and the post-Fellowship job require her to neither stay loooong time at hospital nor overnight (a bit more can be found in the post from 3 years prior (2020/06)).

Fact that m is far more available seems to have affected in various ways, but to name a few most significant factors regarding LM's night time; 1) LM hasn't needed a bottle at night for the longest time as m "used" LM to pump her breast. As m stopped pumping a little before LM turned 2, we finally switched the "night cap" to a bottle, also I took over the role to put LM to sleep at night. 2) LM never transitioned to sleeping on her own bed (yet), she's been sleeping on parents' bed. This is due to m being lazy (admitted) and wanted to breast-feed LM whenever she fusses at night. Because LM still clings eagerly to her mom's chest even though there's been less produce, we keep LM on the same bed and has never moved to a crib, which we have right next to our bed.

These factors being relatd or not, LM has been by far the most difficult at night among 3 kids. At 8 months she already showed a sign (2022/01) but that's more common for the kids at that age so it was not a concern. These days, she wakes up, screams hard, and never easily stops crying once it starts. So far there has been less than 10 nights since he was born where this didn't happen. Only thing that works has been her mom's breast.

On occasions where m is not home at night, LM seems to "give up" and decides to chill with me. On those nights she still fusses hard, but warming a new milk bottle works. m has traveled a few times so LM has so far slept without mama for 10+ nights. However, when mama's home LM seems aware, so milk bottle during the night rarely works, she unexceptionally insists mommy's breast.

As m hopes LM is nearing the true ending of needing breast feeding, we may just want to see what happens to her night time sleep intervention. But proactively speaking, I'm kind of afraid of her sleep habit in the longer run. As you see we've been far more relaxed with LM regarding sleep habit and training than the two older boys. Oldest son HG did show a similar night time disruption (2017/11), but we also made much more effort with them e.g. training (2016/04). None has been done for LM yet. When she reaches the age where she should move to her own bed, will she fall asleep without parents' aid? Will she stay in her bed? We need to re-think.

 

If you got an impression that LM isn't attached to her dad, no worries, she is the most connected to papa second to mama :)

Her passion btw: Carry as many things as possible at once lol This time with runny nose