February 2011 Moms
erbear
member
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Anyone else not sleeping?
erbear
member
I'm going crazy. We're on about week 7 of crap sleep (she used to do great!) and now up every 1-2 hours all night. She naps fine for now, puts herself to sleep but she can't seem to stay asleep. I'm exhausted...
Advice? Sympathy?
"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies. God damn it, you've got to be kind."
- Kurt Vonnegut
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Re: Anyone else not sleeping?
Audrey has always been a crappy sleeper at night. Great for naps, easy to put down at night, but just won't stay asleep. I'm probably jinxing myself, but we've had some luck recently and I'll share what worked... I know you all are probably at wits end and will try any and all advice.
1. We stopped feeding her so often during the day. I was always trying to feed, feed, feed during the day in the hopes that she would get her calories in and wouldn't need to wake to eat at night. Instead, I think we created a snacker. She would eat 2-3 ounces every 2-3 hours during the day, and all throughout the night. In the past few days, I've been trying to stretch her to eat every 3-4 hours during the day, and it's been carrying over into the night.
2. I feed her a TON of veggie or fruit with oatmeal mixed in, right before bathtime/bedtime. Literally I will stuff it in her mouth until she starts refusing it.
3. I know they say sleep begets sleep, but we've been trying to eliminate or shorten her last nap of the day. Usually she would take a third nap around 5 or 5:30, and then go down for the night at 8 pm. I've been trying to get her to stay awake or take just a 20 minute catnap at that time, and then put her down earlier, around 7:30.
4. We let her put herself to sleep. Yes, she cried. But I decided to do it after I had nursed her to sleep, twice, only to have her wake up and cry as soon as I put her in her crib. The 2nd time, she realized I wasn't holding her anymore, and cried with her eyes closed. She opened her eyes, saw that I was standing over her crib, stopped crying and gave a devilish smile, as in "Haha, you're still here." At that point, I was done. She was only crying because she knew it would make me stay--she was fed, changed, not in pain, etc. So I left, and let her cry. She cried for 4 minutes. Then she talked to herself and rolled around in her crib for 10 minutes. Then she slept. For 4 hours.
Since that night, we've kept it up. She'll cry hard for a few minutes (never more than 5), then get herself comfortable and go to sleep.
She has only woken up twice to eat the past 4 nights, and before that she was waking anywhere between 4 (a good night) and 8 (yikes) times a night. If she wakes and it's only been an hour or so since we last fed her, we've let her cry for a few minutes before going in to comfort. It's only happened twice, but both times, DH was just about to go in and get her, and she fell asleep.
I know people are not huge fans of letting your baby cry on TB, but it has worked for us, and A is just as happy and loving during the day as she always has been.
I hope you find something that works for you. 5+ months of getting no sleep is SO freakin tough.
My LO usually goes to bed about 8. She used to sleep 6-6.5 hr stretches, but now we are up every 3 hours on. the. dot.
She naps great and puts herself to bed. But sleeping straight through is just NOT happening! We recently moved so that may have something to do with it. Either way, I am exhausted!