Monday, February 28, 2011

Sleep Diary 1

I'm sitting in front on our mini crib, on the living room floor. Yep, the crib is now in the living room. Though we tried various sleep approaches in the past, we've decided to stop the co-sleeping thing altogether. We recently followed some of the suggestions in this book, but since putting some of the suggestions into practice, things have only gotten worse. I thought times were rough when we were waking up 3 times a night. Last night, that number shot up to 7; she woke up every 45 minutes after 12:50. Mirabel is now to the point where she has to nurse in order to fall back asleep, even if it's only for a minute or two. She screams without the nursing. This is why we're going to have her sleep in the living room, in her own crib. I tried getting her to take her first nap in her crib (without falling asleep nursing), and, after about 5 episodes of putting her down then picking her back up, she finally slept (and so did I)...for 35 minutes. It's better than nothing; I'm hoping to try that approach again for her second nap in just a bit. So far she's only slept through the night once in her entire life. Let's hope we find something that works...and fast! So far, averaging 4 hours of sleep a night for 2 months is the hardest part of parenting. I feel like I'm failing.

3 comments:

Amanda said...

Sorry. I feel you. We went through months of sleep issues and it was awful. I honestly don't know how we made it since it was so bad some of the time.

How old is Sophie now? There is a big sleep regression at 9 months (the one that nearly destroyed us). http://www.askmoxie.org/2008/03/talk-about-the.html

Since Michael demands to be nursed when I take care of him we made a rule that if he woke between certain times that DH had to get him since it was within a couple of hours of his last feeding and hunger shouldn't be the issue. It lowered his expectation of being fed at every waking and helped some, but got me enough sleep to function. Waking 7 times a night isn't healthy for anyone. Good luck.

Anonymous said...

I love Amanda's idea above.

We never did co-sleeping with E so I am not sure I have any advice that will help you.

Sometimes E wakes up 1-2 times a night but he is always hungry. If it isn't legitamite hunger, meaning he doesn't eat hardly anything, then he goes back to his crib. Sometimes he goes right to sleep and others he cries a TON. BUT whenever David has made me just let him cry it has helped him to understand that he doesn't get to dictate when he gets up or how long he is held. Does that make sense?

I know you have no wanted to do the "cry it out" method but that is what has worked for us. The longest he has gone is 30 minutes but then we also started it when he was 2 months old. We had some friends just start doing it too and their little girl went 2 hours the first time and now she sleeps the entire night.

Also just had a thought, do you think she is getting enough milk from you before bed? Have you tried pumping to see how much she is getting?

And don't feel like you are failing. You are the BEST mom for her. You know best. God has anointed you for this job. He will help you and He will enable you to know what move to make next. Every kid is SO different. I admire how long you have been doing this. Praying for you friend.

Sophie said...

Thank you for the suggestions, ladies :). We are going to keep at it until we find something that works. Yep, I definitely couldn't do it alone!!

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