We got lucky with an infant. I'm well aware of this. I have a friend whose daughter spent three days crying and nothing they did would console her. We, on the other hand, had a little angel who's tears from teething were easily soothed with some Oragel or Tylenol (which she loved to take.) Everything was great! Until now.
Child has been getting a molar in, one of the more painful teeth to be sure. She also appears to have inherited my restless leg syndrome. On top of that, she no longer likes her cherry-flavoured acetaminophen. Oh, and she discovered high-pitched shrieking a while back. All of this has combined to form a perfect storm of bad sleep for all of us.
On Friday night she was so cranky that Spouse ran off to the guest room to sleep. I stayed with her, trying to comfort with nursing, massage and "please, please, please take the nice medicine!" She got to sleep at 4:30 in the morning. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she then woke up every hour with and ear-piercing scream, and then would instantly fall back asleep. We eventually got up around 9:30 but she was in great need of a nap later, and managed a couple of hours of slumber. I, on the other hand, didn't get down for a nap until the evening when the two of us went down for almost three hours of on/off sleep.
The general screaming, which I know is just a phase they all go through, is hell on Spouse. He's taken to having big earmumffy hearing protectors around and putting them on. My tactic is more along the lines of trying to find out why she is screaming, not that it helps much*. She screams when you don't pay attention to her, but mostly screams when she doesn't get her way. She is toddler: she is ID! If they didn't then do cute things, like cuddle up, thumb in mouth, or try to decorate the Christmas tree on her own, I don't think the human race would survive.
Here's a cute picture of her with chocolate on her face, helping me cut out gingerbread men. How could I deny that face anything!
*Really it's just that we have different ways of dealing with it. I'm not saying I'm somehow better for being able to ignore screaming.
