Getting Zzzzzzzz’s
We are working on Katherine’s sleeping. Over time she has regressed from sleeping 8-10 hours through the night to waking every 3 hours. When she wakes up she wants to nurse. Since she has always been so small, I have nursed her every time because I figured she needed the calories, but what that did was not allow her to learn to fall back asleep on her own. So, now, even if she is not hungry she wants to nurse because that is the only way she can fall back asleep. It is very exhausting for her mommy.
I was not really excited about letting her cry it out. I have tried it some before and she cried for an hour and was no closer to giving in and falling asleep. So, I read an entire book about how to get them in a better sleep pattern without crying. There were a lot of useful ideas about setting a very strict routine, having a lovey . . . BUT after reading it, I was not sure that I believed it could work. You were supposed to do a sleep log every ten days to not improvement and rework your plan. I wanted to try to have her on a better schedule before we were out of town over the holidays.
So, in a act of desperation I told Sam we were going to make changes and it would include crying. Two nights ago I somehow was able to nurse her, keep her awake and then have her fall asleep. That was at 9:30 (I know, we have a late bedtime - we will work on that next). She then woke up at midnight. I was in bed and put in my earplugs and let her cry. She cried really hard for about 20 minutes. Then for the next hour she would fall asleep for 10-20 minutes and then cry for 10-20 minutes. Then she slept until 5:15. I had told Sam that for a baby that was used to waking every three hours I could not let her go all night without eating (plus I would not like the way I felt). So we decided that I would feed her if she woke up after 3am. So, we felt like it was a failry successful first night.
Last night I again nursed her and got her to fall asleep not while nursing. But, when I laid her in the crib she started to cry. So, Sam went in to rock and cuddle until she fell asleep. At midnight she cried for 30 seconds before falling asleep. Sam and I looked at each other and thought, “could it really be this easy?” She woke up at 3 exactly and then slept until 6:45 when Sam got up to go to work.
I know we are no where close to solving our sleep problems, but we are on our way. Please pray for us. It is hard to listen to your sweet baby cry. We really hope to have her sleeping through the night again soon. The good thing is that when she woke up the next morning she did not seem to be mad or holding any grudges for making her cry for so long.
