Wonder Weeks warned that I’m 2 days into the new fussy period, which starts at 14 weeks, as the baby picks up connections between motions and actions to understand a whole set of “events,” such as a ball bouncing, the fact that she can move her hand and arm at the same time, in multiple directions, in order to grasp something she sees and then bring it up to her mouth, etc. This warning includes something about the baby having inconsolable crying. I thought, “Well, Allie may cry inexplicably here and there, but it won’t be INCONSOLABLE. She rarely cries as it is, and doesn’t cry for long.” OMG.

This morning, she was woken up after only 30 mins into her morning nap by the garbage truck rumbling and beeping around our cul de sac, so she has to hear it coming AND going. She woke up screaming and was inconsolable for the next 40 minutes. I couldn’t get her to go back to sleep, but she was exhausted, so talk about crabby. My in-laws came this weekend to meet her, and had to deal with a screaming baby, whom they also did their best to entertain. My mother-in-law fed Allie her bottle (thank goodness the boycott is over and she gulped the bottle down while I pumped upstairs), burped her, and things were calm for awhile as Allie smiled and played with them in her activity walker. Soon, she got crabby again as she was up way longer than she should’ve been before she would go down for her next nap. My in-laws left for home at this point to give me the time to console her into her next nap.

Allie was down barely half an hour, after a long hysterical soothing period, when the next-door neighbor’s gardener decided it was absolutely necessary to whack the little strip of lawn between our driveways for 15 minutes with a weedwacker. And a lawnmower. And then the weedwacker again. Allie woke up SCREAMING and was again inconsolable for a long time. For the first time, I believe she was screaming and crying (tears and runny nose and all) just for the sake of screaming and crying. When I played and sung to her and made a big smiley face, she’d smile back and sometimes let out a laugh in spite of herself, and then she’d realize she’s on the wrong emotion, and then she’d go right back to wailing. I believe this is a tantrum we’re dealing with. “I’m MAD cuz I’m tired and I couldn’t sleep, so I’m going to complain to you at the top of my lungs until you think you’ll never sleep again, either!”

It took close to another hour to calm her down. She could be distracted momentarily, but she’d remember, “Oh yeah, I was having a fit,” and then go right back where she left off. I fed her, took her for a walk in the backyard and then to the mailbox, and she seemed all right although a bit wired. Finally, she yawned, and I put her down after very little soothing. Great, cuz my back was killing me from carrying her without much of a break from all her crying today. So I put her down in her crib, pulled a receiving blanket up to her waist, tiptoed out, silently closed the door, breathed a sigh of relief…and then heard in horror a new motor sound beginning. I ran to the window. The neighbor across the street was using a circular saw in his front yard. Not in the garage, but way out in the front yard. I almost cried.

So far, Allie has stayed down. She’s most vulnerable to waking at the half-hour point, when her sleep cycle comes to a natural end before the next REM cycle hits. I’m praying to the nap gods to please please please let her sleep for at least 1.5 hours this nap.

AND YUP, 36 MINUTES, AND ALLIE IS NOW UP AND CRYING CUZ THE SAW JUST STARTED AGAIN!@#$ ALL THE CUSS WORDS IN THE WORLD!@#$ I WANT TO SAW THAT NEIGHBOR IN HALF!!!

*** LATER:
I tried to look online for advice on how to “noise-train” a baby, and apparently, you CAN’T:
http://www.babysleepsite.com/how-we-sleep/baby-sleep-noise-sound/
Not only that, but apparently, you SHOULDN’T:
http://www.sleeplady.com/baby-sleep/should-i-train-my-child-to-sleep-thru-noise/

I can’t find advice to the contrary. If you know something I can read that actually teaches babies to effectively to sleep through noise and it’s backed up by research or medical science, please let me know.