Sleep Baby Sleep

Since about 4 months Baby E has become a decent sleeper. This is when we taught her to fall asleep on her own. No more rocking for an hour and walking around like a zombie. It was much easier this time around since her skill to self soothe herself was much stronger. Now, when we see she is tired we bring her up to her room, read her a story, pit her down when she yawns and close the door. Sometimes, she will whine or fuss but nothing really more then 10 min. Usually she just pops her thumb in her mouth and goes down without a fight.

Only now do I realize that Baby E is actually a pretty good sleeper...she would go to bed at 6:30pm wake at around 1am and go to 6am (sometimes there is a 4am feeding too). Until, recently. So when the change to daylights savings time came it was a bit rough, she would go down at 5am and wake at around 4am (how fun for me) but as time progressed she found her old schedule again...that is until about a week ago.

Baby E hit 5 months old and something changed. She would wake up 1hr after I put her down for bed and stay up till 9 sometimes 10pm! At first I thought it was because DH was away for work and she somehow felt he was gone, but DH has since come home and still wake ups after her bedtime put down.

I know I can't fight it and I can't force her to sleep (crying it out does not work when she is not tired) so I just have to pick her up and wait till she gets tired again. But I'm wondering what is going on? She isn't fussing so I don't think she is teething, she is starting to learn to roll but not sure if that will make her wake But more importantly, I want her to get enough rest. She will wake up around 7:30/8 am now and in my opinion 9-10 hours with a feeding in the middle is not enough sleep for a 5 month old. Let's hope she finds her way again and soon. If she continues to get up after bedtime, DH and I can kiss date nights out the window.

Early Sleep Training = Feeling Like a Bad Mother

Please note that the picture here showing a peaceful baby is not the result of my first sleep training experience.

So this past week has been a bit rough. If I never felt like a bad mother before, I did this week. DH and I felt that Baby E was ready to learn how to self soothe herself to sleep. We thought she was ready, she had done it before on occasion. In a way we were right, on the other hand we were VERY wrong. For those of you who are not familiar with the "Cry it out" method of sleep training, what you do is you lay your baby in the crib while semi-awake, semi-sleeping and leave the room. The modified version allows parents to go into the room to reassure baby that they are not abandoned in specific time intervals, each time being longer then the previous. DH and I further modified this but going in every 5-7 minutes. We decided to start with naps and continue on with her bedtime.

Day 1 was good, Baby E actually fell asleep straight away when I put her down after our nap routine ( I sing her a little song till she eyes get heavy) not bad I thought, Baby E was doing great. Day 2 and 3 rolled around and it was a whole new ball game. The first time I put her down she cried on and off for 1 1/2 hours. I couldn't take it anymore. I picked her up and held her tight. With nap 2 and 3 she cried for about 20 minutes and then slept, but only for about 30 minutes. Day 3 was much of the same if not a bit worse.

The main goal here was to get her to soothe herself and get a restful sleep. Let me tell you, she was far from rested. With nap 4 she cried for 30 minutes and she slept for about 2 hours, probably because she was just so tired. As bedtime rolled around we wrapped her up, fed her and started to read her her story. FREAK OUT! she cried and cried. After about 1 hour she slept, not peacefully mind you, waking up 20 minutes later and crying for another 15 minutes. I could hear her whimper through her monitor.

Yesterday was much of the same but at bedtime when the routine started you could see it in her eyes, she was terrified! I couldn't do it to her again, she was so scared to fall asleep even when I rocked her to bed she would wake up with a petrafied look on her face. I had to abandon ship.

Now I have to work to reverse the fear I've instilled in her and get her back to the way it was before. I just want to see a smiling baby again, not a tired scared one. The good thing that came from this is she found a soothing mechanisum, she sucks her hand. Still when I out her to bed tonight she was nervous, she sucked on the hand for her whole story and woke up once. Not crying but whimpering. For those who have yet to experiance a scared child let me tell you how it is. Imagine someone ripped out your heart, placed it in front of you and punched it repeatedly. That's how it feels to listen to your baby cry, that's how it feels when you see fear in your baby's eyes when she looks up at you.

Now I'm not saying the CIO (cry it out) method doesn't work, I'm sure it does. I just don't think Baby E was ready for it. We may revisit it in a few months, but for now, I'll rock her and hold her for as long as she needs. These days it's about 40 minutes. That's my punishment for making my baby cry I guess.