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8 years ago
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
I should be...
...SLEEPING! Why am I awake at 1:45am?? I should be curled up under my covers, but some cute little baby girl has a different idea. I have no idea why this baby does not want to sleep at night. She is a completely different baby at night than she is during the day. During the day she eats well, stays awake some, and sleeps a ton. We try to keep her awake for a good amount of time during the day, but that can be really difficult with her. But, once nighttime rolls around, she is wide awake! She isn't always necessarily crying, but sometimes she is. So far, tonight has been a bad night. After feeding her at 9pm, we got her asleep in our room by 10pm. We hopped in to bed, said goodnight, and she was awake by 10:15...arghh! Then I tried putting her pacifier in her mouth over and over again and it calms her down, but then she spits it out and starts crying again. So, at 10:45, I made her a bottle and she ate all 4oz....this is after I just fed her at 9! That didn't make her fall asleep, so from 11pm till now, 1:50, we've been rocking her, giving her her pacifier and now I'm downstairs and she's in the swing. She will "sleep" for a few minutes at a time, but then just wakes right back up. She is REALLY trying our patience and I'm having to dig deep to be a loving mother...at least during the night. Does ANYONE have any suggestions to help me with this baby???? I just feel so bad b/c now Dan will only get 3 hours of sleep! I won't get much more, but I don't have to go to work and pay attention in a class like Dan does. So, if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. She is just so confusing, I don't know what to do for her. I wish she was as good at night as she is during the day. Hopefully I can go to sleep soon too...wish me luck :)
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9 comments:
it just takes babies a while to adjust to life on the outside. you were lucky with Carson adjusting so well, and it makes it harder when you have a baby that doesn't follow suit. if she ate so much more so soon after you fed her last, maybe try tanking her up a little bit more before you lay her down. i got to a point with my kids that i realized that trying to hop into bed before 11 or 12 wasn't worth the frustration, so i decided to just stay up and give them that last feeding before i ventured into bed. it seemed worse for me to have to get out of bed than it did to just be up too late. if nothing else, at least she's a cute baby! i think Heavenly Father made them cute babies so we don't strangle them when they drive us nuts! :) good luck with her! we're counting down til you guys come to visit!
Oh the joys of motherhood. I wish I had a lot of good advice, but what I have learned is that every child is different and you will do different things to survive each one. One idea may work for one but not all. She will eventually turn around, but until then I wish you all the luck in the world. Abbey was the same way--hence the 3yr gap before zack. Maybe it is a girl thing. If I hear of any good tricks I will let you know.
Oh, that just makes me tired reading about it! But Brynlee really is so cute!
I'm sure you have tried everything, but here are more ideas you can veto or whatever :)
Try swaddling her tightly when you put her down at night.
Tank her up before bedtime.
Have her sleep in her carseat.
A fan or some other noise might help soothe her to sleep.
Don't make eye contact with her or give her any stimulation once she's woken up after putting her down and keep the lights low.
Now I'm just making stuff up!
I have a good sleep book I can lend you if you want. Chantell had it for a while and seemed to like it too. My kids have had their own sleep issues, so I totally can commiserate! I hope you get some sleep soon!
This is so tough because when we aren't sleeping, we don't feel very nice. I don't have any other great ideas to add to what has already been said but I just wanted to lend my support! Good luck!
We have purchased the DVD "Happiest Baby on the Block" by Dr. Karp. He discusses how to use the 5 S's...swaddle, suck, shake (jiggle), ssshhhh (white noise) and I can't remember the last one.I used them on my newest niece and my newest nephew and they calmed down instantly... it put Rachael to sleep, Logan just relaxed. It's worth a try, even if she doesn't go to sleep-you can!
What I have found to work with both of my babies is that i make them stay awake from 5:00pm until bed time. Which is ususally 8:00pm. I give them a bath at around 7:00 to help them stay awake just in case they were thinking of falling asleep. Then ususally by 8:00 they are so tired sometimes they just pass out. Not all the time by sometimes. That helps get them on a good schedule.
We also did the swaddling thing it worked really well with Tyler.
This is just what worked well for us. Better with Tyler than Rockwell but we had somewhat of an idea after many mistakes we made with rockwell. Anyways hope this helps.
Take her fishing!
I'm so sorry you guys are experiencing serious sleep deprivation! My Nina was a horrible sleeper too. I remember she was up an entire night once - seriously never slept more than 10 minutes at a time. Ooh it's so hard. I wish I could give you great advice, but what really worked for me was eventually doing serious sleep training when she was about 7 months old. I tried many different books, but the one that finally worked was Sleeping Through the Night by Jodi Mindell. Good luck getting your little sweetie to sleep!
Those sleepless nights are so rough. Mason was such a dream sleeper-a champ once he figured it out. Katie on the other hand has been a different story all together. She started great until she got a cold and then her night sleeping went to pot and she didn't get better for months! (with sleeping that is, her cold was long gone). But when she was doing good, I would do as some of the others said and tank her up. Right before I went to bed around 10:30ish, I'd go in and feed her but try not to really wake her up and she'd just eat and go right back to sleeping. So then she'd sleep till around 4am. It was great! But like I said, she got congested and it went all down hill.
I think it's a girl thing... they're just harder!
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