Disaster Morning (Day 4)

Well, Daisy has been holding it together bravely every day at preschool, but today she cracked. She was screaming and crying and begging me not to leave, and I couldn't help crying as I left. One of the teachers, a very kind woman, was trying to hold Daisy on her lap, but Daisy was kicking and flailing all over the place. Walking away was one of the hardest things I've had to do. I felt like I was falling apart inside. I called the school a little while later, and Nina (one of the directors, also very kind) told me that Daisy had only cried for a couple minutes--thank God. Giuliana, the teacher, read a book to her and she calmed down. It made me feel good to know they've figured her out so well already, to know that reading her a book is probably the best way to make her happy. Nina checked on her in the classroom and said she was now part of a group and was calm.

I know a few different factors go into what happened today. One is that she hasn't been sleeping well. The big change has been affecting her sleep at night. She seems anxious, doesn't get to sleep till late, and wakes up early. She has new fears (like not letting us close her door at night) that have started since preschool began. She also hasn't been napping, and I'm at a loss about what to do. The problem is that when I pick her up at 11:30, this is about when I should be moving her toward a nap-- but she's so happy to see me and do something, and I'm so happy to be with her, too, that getting right to bed just doesn't seem feasible. Then, if I give her a later nap, it's likely to mess up bedtime, pushing it later... which means she's going to be tired in the morning when she gets up for school. So, over the last week she hasn't been napping and has been getting probably a total of 9 or 9.5 hours of sleep a night. No wonder she cracked this morning.

I don't have the heart to write much more about it right now, but I really hope it gets better. I will try to be patient.