Five videos and a slew of photos.
Thoughts on sleep:
Maggie takes good naps. She takes 30-45 minute naps and she takes 1 1/2-2 hr naps. She still takes about four naps a day. (three during the “day” and one in the “evening”. I use quotation marks, because some of you call our “evening” the afternoon and our “day” the morning. What can I say?) To fall asleep, I stand next to her and hold the pacifier in her mouth until she falls asleep. She rubs her face down on the bed and turns her head back and forth and tries to grab her pacifier…. so this is actually a tricky thing to do. It is much easier on the back than carrying her until she falls asleep, but leaning over the crib isn’t so hot for your back either. Just the same, she is an angel when asleep.
At night, she usually takes a little longer than the 5-15 minutes it takes to get her to sleep during the day. Sometimes is takes a full half hour, Brian and I switching off “holding” the pacifier (we’ve already discussed how this is more complicated than it sounds). We have pretty good timing too – laying her down when she is tired and fed and changed and just Ready for sleep. Anywho, during the night she sleeps 3-4 hours in the first stretch. Then she wakes up and yells for food. Then she wakes up every 30 minutes to 3 hours for the pacifier and nursing. She always goes back to sleep for at least 1 1/2 hours if I feed her. Not so much if I give her the pacifier.
All that was just fine for five months. (Almost five months anyway.) It is a comfortable, familiar pattern. And I wake up with energy. But I am pretty tired come the afternoon. My brain functions so much better on sleep. And my brain stops functioning in the afternoon and evening. Brian is used to hearing me say things like, “I don’t know the answer, you need to decide.” Because I can’t always process thought. So I think it’s time to try something. Time for her to break a few habits. I hope it’s not too painful.
People, you have read far more baby sleep books than I have. If you have read something or just DONE something – tell me your thoughts. What should I tackle first? Second? How should I tackle it?
On TMJ:
Researching insurance, researching doctors, need to get some treatment for my jaw which clicks and grinds something terrible.
On Brian’s work:
BPA offered him the job – with matched salary and improved benefits! (Exact same “job” but with BPA instead of through a contractor) So this is great news! Really need to figure out benefits now so B can sign up.
Maggie watching the book reading in her awesome loud diaper:
I can’t leave her on the couch any more.
My favorite baby hold that I’ve used for some time. You can hold one or both legs. Works when they’re even younger… you just fold them up tighter if they’re floppier.
Add a swimming suit, a rubbermaid tub and some new toys and you’ve got entertainment for an hour:
We made “bread cookies” with bread and cookie cutters. Then we made some cream cheese runnier and added red food coloring. Then she “frosted” her cookies. She could use some more frosting practice. 😀 Video below:
Talking on the computer with Grammy who was with G-Gma the first week while she was recovering.
I like the game, “Everybody Lay on the Bed”
First food: home-canned pear in a mesh teether!
Anna learning to spread thinned, pinked cream cheese onto bread cut out into shapes with cookie cutters:
Anna getting crazy dressed:
“We’re going to Grandma and Grandpa’s on Saturday” (done on Friday night):
Anna and Maggie – Maggie rolling from front to back:
Maggie rolling, rolling, and rolling!
Time for her to find her thumb!
Being tired in the afternoon is so hard with two little ones. I think one of the best books is The No Cry Sleep Solution, and it will probably work well for you because you are so good at committing to something and sticking with it. While you’re working on the sleep thing, are you able to take a nap during one of Maggie’s daytime sleeps? Even laying down without sleeping might help restore some energy. And lots of good protein snacks during the day will also help.
This will be great to hear everyone’s take- you have a large enough research group! Hope you are told something helpful. I’ll work on my reply, and you’ll get it hopefully within the month. 🙂
Uh, Rachel, it could have been me writing this it sounds so similar! (except we rock Luka to sleep unfortunately.) I totally know what you mean about your brain being unable to process thoughts. It sounds like you guys are doing a good job – she is already doing half the work of going to sleep on her own! It sounds like she has Luka’s problem, … See needs to learn to fall asleep on her own! Do you think she really needs to nurse at night? If not, maybe you could work on that and she will probably stop waking up so often. Right now I am reading The Sleep Lady and Ferber. I like them both, not sure which I am going with yet. I found The Sleep Lady to be pretty insightful as to why babies who should be sleeping at night are waking up and what are just bad habits and what are actual needs.
well… Henry would’ve very much liked me to put the pacifier in over and over anywhere from 3 am on into time to get up… we had to just let him cry it out. I’ve been not feeding him at night for months now, and he just developed the habit of waking up in the early am wanting his binkie put back in… SO hard, but we had to just break the habit …by not giving it to him ( at least not right away- we let him cry longer each time). He has similar going to sleep habits to what you describe- and he often spits up and rubs his face in it… we’re just trying to have consistent sleep times (within 15 minutes of the set time), and I do rock him a little beforehand and make an effort to make it a smooth transition. He likes having his head rubbed/ back patted too, which has helped prevent spittups. I’m learning with both my boys that routine is valuable- it helps them know what to expect, and to do what I expect them to, with less resistance. I’ve even found that a fairly strict eating routine helps with the sleeping routine too.
you’re doing fabulous, keep it up!
Well, Rachel… our answer was a lot like Anna’s. Routine, routine, routine. I only did the pacifier thing at night for like 2 weeks or something and then decided that I couldn’t get up every hour to pop it back in. The first few nights were not any fun, but after that we just fell into a schedule and I comforted and snuggled tons before he went down and then when it was bed time that was it. After a short (it didn’t feel too short at the time) while he just fell into routine and knew when it was bed time and fell asleep. He slept consistently 7-8 hours a night after he was 12 weeks or so. I know many people don’t get easy babies and I’m interested to see what works with the next one because I know each kid is different but from all the mama’s I’ve talked to routine is so key and very helpful if not problem solving
It took 3 nights for Maddie to stay asleep without waking for a feeding, etc when she was about that age. And to do it, we did let her cry, one good session of crying and she’d be good the rest of the night. Then after 3 nights, she didn’t wake up once!
Lizzy was a very different child and more stubborn! She has taken a lot more time and patience, and still wakes up sometimes around 5:30am which annoys me so badly!
I would say that what ever you choose will be noisy for a few days. You will probably feel like a terriible parent. None of you will get good sleep for a few days, but you will all still love each other in the morning and at the end of the week you should all sleep a little bit better. I’d try to go cold turkey. If you think she is hungry at night, I think you could feed once, no more a couple of times and try and keep it at the same times each night. Otherwise, invest in earplugs. You’ll do great, I’m sure.
ith Nathan the sleep thing went “by the book” and he was sleeping 8-12 hours by the time he was 2 months old. Evelyn though is a completely different story. She still has issues sleeping through the night and is 9 months old. We have been working on feeding her solids quite a bit during the day which seems to help the hunger issue at night though she still likes to wake up and be cuddled around 4 AM. Some nights we let her fuss it out, but we worry she will wake up big brother, so often we just go hold her for about 5-10 minutes not giving her food then she goes right back to sleep. Main thing I can say is pray for her and yourself that you can all get better sleep. It’s not a fun process. Perhaps give her rice cereal before putting her down for the night. IT did help a bit with Nathan and Evelyn both.
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