Thursday, July 19, 2007
Mission Sleep Through the Night: Night One
Well, last night didn't go so smoothly. I knew that it wouldn't though, so no big suprise there. We started our new bedtime routine at about 7:15pm. I gave her a bath, rubbed her down with lotion, put on jammies, read 4 books, turned on her Baby Einstein: Mozart CD ad started the rocking/nursing process. One of the key concepts of the book is to comfort baby until very relaxed and almost asleep, and then lay her in the crib and stay there with her until she falls asleep. If she starts to cry, pick her up and start all over again. Well, she was not tired at all when I tried all this. She was laughing and babbling and trying to wiggle out of my lap. So I decided to let her play for a little bit until I saw her tired signs.

I started getting her to sleep again about 8:45pm, and I had her in bed by 9:00pm. She went down on the first try, but she usually does this anyway. Her normal routine is to go to bed for 45 mins to and hour, and then she's up and refuses to get back in her bed, so I take her to bed with me. But, let me clarify that co-sleeping is not the problem here for me. If she would sleep through the night, she could sleep in my bed all night for all I care. But she doesn't, and I think she wakes up even more because she is in my bed and has easy access to the milk. So that is why I'm trying to get her to sleep in her own bed.

10:00pm rolled around and I heard her start to stir in her bedroom. The book says to go to her before she fully wakes up so it will be easier to get her back to sleep. I did that, and to make a long story short, after an hour and a half of picking her up, rocking her until she was almost asleep, putting her down and her screaming her head off, I lost my patience and took her to bed with me. I seriously went through the picking up/putting down routine about 12 times. I still went through with the plan for the rest of the night though, which is not letting her nurse until she is completely asleep, but only until she is relaxed enough to fall asleep on her own. It worked really well. She was up at 3:30am and 6:00am, and then slept until 8:00am. That is an improvement already considering the hell that we went through on Sunday night. Sunday night she went to bed at 8:30pm, up at 9:30pm, up at 12:00am, up at 2:00am, up from 3:00am until 6:30am, up at 7:30am, up for the day at 9:00am. Oh yes, that was loads and loads of fun. There was one point where I took her to her crib and I went back to my bed and just cried for about 20 minutes. All the while she was screaming bloody murder. It was hell.

Today we are starting with our daytime routine as well, so tonight will be the real test to see if she responds any differently. The book suggests that you try to plan your days around your baby's sleep schedule for a while until she gets the hang of it, and then it won't be such a big deal if the schedule gets a little thrown off later. That is going to be the hard part because every day is so unpredictable, but I'm going to try as hard as I can to keep things consistent.

Does anyone have any suggestions? What do your routines look like, or do you even have one? HELP!! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

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2 Comments:

Blogger Jessica said...

Well, even though last night didn't go smoother, it seemed like an improvement...

I'll give you what we do, and you can take it how you want....

Dylan is up by 5:45 or 6:00 a.m. He then drinks a 7-8 oz bottle. He goes back to sleep until I get ready to leave (7:15) or when the hubby goes to the store (8:00). During the day (at least with me on the weekends..although the sitter does pretty much the same thing), he eats his breakfast around 9 or 9:30 (usually oatmeal w/bananas). Nap is usually close after this. For me, he sleeps close to 1 1/2 -2 hours. Bottle when he wakes up (sometimes we skip to solids, depending on when he wakes). Usually solids (baby food) around 12:00 or 12:30. Nap at 1:30 or so (usually lasts anywhere from 1 1/2 hrs to 2 again), bottle at 3:00 or 3:30, another bottle at 5:30, then dinner at 7:00 (usually solids and oatmeal).

Then we do bath time, lotion, rock while reading stories, then into the crib fully awake (although most nights, he's rubbing his eyes by then). He usually goes down within 1/2 to 45 minutes. Since he's been teething, he will wake up and whimper, but then falls right back asleep. That teething crap is nasty.

Anyways, that's our day usually. I know that once he got on a regular nap/eat schedule, he was doing better throughout the night. Don't give up. This might take a week or so. It's definitely a change for them (and you!), and they're stubborn, but Aeralyn will eventually get it.

Have you talked to the pediatrician about it? Once mine told me what to do (put him down awake, when he cries, give him a couple of minutes to cry, go in, DON'T PICK HIM UP (unless he's majorly losing it), pat his back, shhhhhhh him, then leave again...start it over if he does it again), it did work (although I thought it sounded majorly cruel). After we finally got some sleep, I realized the doc really did know what he was talking about! lol

Hope I helped. Let me know if you want to talk more about stuff if I can help...((hugs))

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm we've never really had a very big issue with Kira sleeping, however when we transitioned her from our bed to her own, I always told her quite firmly that it was bed time, and she was to go to sleep now. When she did stir and fuss, I would walk back in and acknowledge her, rock her for a bit and put her back down which normally works for her.

Then there are some nights where it doesn't work (now, not back then) and I bring her into bed, wait til she's asleep or almost asleep and put her back in her crib where she stays the rest of the night.

It sounds like it's just a habit with her nursing of an evening whenever she wants to, so have you considered giving her some formula for her final nightly feed before she goes down for the night? (I'm sorry I don't remember if you've tried a bottle before or not) Going to bed on a big full tummy of milk really helps Kira sleep. (She's on cows milk alot now)

Also.. one final thing... a trick I learned to get Kira to sleep through the day (which you can do of an evening as well) was to give her 6oz of milk (formula or cows) with half a teaspoon of sugar in it (we use raw sugar, not white processed). Warm it up in the microwave, and usually within 20mins, Kira is so tired and sleepy she can barely keep her eyes open. :) There's just something about warm milk with a bit of sugar that knocks them out! It's weird.

Hope you guys get all squared away soon, girlie. Thinking of you!

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