For Emily, it started at 6 weeks. Before then I let her fall asleep whenever, where ever and enjoyed their teeny fleeting weeks.
At 6 weeks, I started watching for sleep cues and moved her into my dark quiet room with her sound machine. It was weeks of cat naps and running upstairs to place her pacifier back, but it worked! She napped well, early. She has never had an issue getting into her bassinet/crib to fall asleep either. I even started laying her down with her blankie early on to slowly form that attachment. Again, worked like a charm. Now at 8 months, if I pull out her blankie, she rubs her face into it. Blankie = sleep. Success!! Sounds like I have this down, right? Daytime... yes. Yes I do.
But then there is night. ::cue horror screams::
Like I said above, my kids don't sleep a full 12 hours until I wean them right around a year. That part I accept. That's ok. If I can reach the 4-5 hour sleep stretches, I am a happy camper. I don't mind feeding an infant once or twice a night. Miss Emily is rocking the system though. Let me tell you about last night.
**I will preface this by saying that I do think she is teething, so what I'm about to tell you is extreme sleep disturbance. She's not like this every night but she's not a great night-sleeper in general. Overall, I'm not a fan of the cop-out of "Oh, she's teething." I feel like that is used as a blanket to ignore something else going on with your baby or a general excuse. That's just me. I'll step off that soap box. Emily has been drooling again and I think I felt a top tooth bump, so I think that is bothering her, but...**
She went to bed at 7:15. She was up at 9 and 11, which is not normal, but I was hoping that maybe she was stocking up her belly and would blissfully sleep the rest of the night. HA!
I went to bed at 11:30, early for me right now, and she was up at 1, 2, 4, 5 & 7. At 7 she was UP and wanted to be entertained. " But Susie, she at least gave you a 2 hour stretch from 5-7." To that I would reply, "Well, yes, she did. However right before I put her back down at 5, Josh woke up and was scared and needed to be 'cuddled.'" I slept at the end of his bed from 5 until 7. Sleeping curled up at the end of a preschoolers bed isn't the more comfortable thing ever. ::sigh:: I woke up so tired this morning I wanted to cry. I'm not a crier.
Two nights ago Jim alerted me to the fact that Emily's new closet-room shares a wall with our neighbors.
Fantastic. I feel like I am at the point where I need to let Emily cry, at least a little. She knows she is secure, she knows that I'm there, but she comes out of sleep and cries for me. Screams for me. She needs that last piece of the puzzle: self soothing between sleep cycles. I need need need to let her cry or at least fuss. And I feel like I can't. More than that, I feel like I can't let her utter a peep because she'll wake up the neighbors. So I'm stuck. I'm stuck with a baby who gets up often. I am well aware that if I don't nip this, I'm setting her up for a longer pattern of not sleeping well. Pressure! I just desperately want to get to the point of her sleeping 4 hour stretches. I need to be happy and functional for my kids. Her sleeping like this doesn't warrant either of those. If she got up at 12, 4, and 8 I would be supremely happy. Sleeping only 1-2 hours is ridiculous. The sleep trainer in me wants to smack the nighttime me and give a hearty lecture. Yet, the sleep trainer is stuck and doesn't know what to do. I'm not sure how to sleep train a child without letting them cry/fuss at all. Even when I used the "No Cry Sleep Solution" with Josh, he fussed and cried a bit when I put him down. It isn't crying-it-out but when they want you and you put them back, they tend to protest a bit.
Anyway, I need sleep. Somehow, I need to sleep more than I do. I wonder if there is a patron saint of sleeping that I can do a novena to... Joking... kinda.
Emily has been up once so far tonight... I am heading to bed now. Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment