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Sleep is so important... but often you don't realize how important until you are getting any! Gwen started sleeping through the night (frequently) sometime before 3 months. She stopped around 4 months when we hit the dreaded 4 month wakeful... but then it got better again after about a month. Lo, when 6 months rolled around, again she stopped sleeping great due to a number of things. It got slightly better, but now its worse again. There have been recent nights when I've only gotten around 4.5 hours, broken up through the night. Sometimes I would be so tired during her wakings that it almost hurt. It would be hard to keep my eyes open and I almost wanted to cry. It got to the point that I had almost started to dread going to sleep because of the wakings! My tummy would be in knots.
Luckily that is not the case anymore, for two reasons... it seems her sleeping is moving in the right direction again, and frankly, I started talking myself down! Lol. "Relax, take a deep breathe, if she wakes then you'll handle it at that point, no sense in worrying about it now." It has actually helped me to sleep more restfully when I am asleep, as opposed to before when I would be half-sleeping, just waiting for the first cry.
So, what caused her disturbed sleep (2, 3, 4 wakings a night... only counting after I would go to bed, not from when she went down... and sometimes waking for good at 5:00-5:30)? I have a few theories, and I think it is actually a combination of a few of the following:
- 9ish month sleep regression (apparently very normal, as they pick up new skills... she's starting to walk along furniture and let go of furniture while standing for a few seconds at a time)
- still working on tooth/teeth (feel bumps on bottom)
- vaccination (a flu booster about a week ago, right when things had been starting to get better)
- stuffiness (she's been fighting a cold, especially since that damn flu booster)
- too hot (I'll expound below)
- our daughter is evil and likes to torture us (kidding! i think...)
I just put it out there that I don't agree with CIO in general, but definitely not for Gwen. For some families, its what has to be done (but please, only after you've tried other methods first)... but for it to work you really have to know if your baby is a Tension Relieving Crier (aka they really NEED to cry for a minute to relax before falling asleep) vs. a Tension Gaining Criers (the more they cry, the more worked up and awake they get... the could cry until they are hysterical and won't fall asleep)*. Gwen falls in the second category. Plus, I just don't feel like hearing my baby cry when I can make her feel better!
What we are/have been trying:
Having Trav take turns at night with putting her back to sleep, so its not all about the boob. It definitely seems to have helped, as after just one night of that, she went from 3 wakings to 2. Maybe the timing was coincidental, but it definitely seemed to help. Also, even when I'm the one to go in, I try rocking/snuggling to sleep first, and only offer to feed her if that doesn't seem to be working.
Also, we turned down the heat at night. We've always had our thermostat set to be higher first thing in the morning (when we are getting up and ready), and in the evenings (when we are home from work). Its cooler during the day and when we are sleeping at night. Well we were discussing how we have to keep our night time cool temp higher then we used to. Trav misunderstood what exactly I meant by that, and suddenly the heat was going on higher at night then it was during the evenings... not just higher then it had been. So, it was getting too hot at night. Even I was uncomfortable! So when we figured that out, the very first night we turned it down, she slept from 12:30 to 6! And I slept much better too!
We also set up the humidifier in her room, since she's been snuffly. We did that last night, and she slept from 10 - 5:30!
Finally, today she is wearing her Inspired by Finn necklace for the first time. Hopefully that will help get rid of teething pains so we don't have to use any Tylenol or teething tabs. I'm sure I'll do a review of the necklace at some point, once we've had a chance to try it for a while.
How we're doing now:
Well first, huge props to my sweet, wonderful husband who got up with Gwen both mornings over the weekend so that I could sleep in a bit. That was so needed, because even with him taking a night waking, I was still getting way too little sleep each night. Its really added up too. However (and I hate to even mention this, and possibly jinx it because it was only one night... but), last night was the night that Gwen went down, asleep by 7:45ish, woke once at 9:45, then was back to sleep until 5:30 (where she slept off and on with us until the alarm at 6). That's amazing, and I'm sure 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep would have fan-freakin-tastic, if Trav and I hadn't been woken up just before 4 by a weird beeping noise that ended up being our indoor/outdoor thermometer. So odd. Hopefully Gwen will give us a repeat performance tonight, and the thermometer won't(!), so we can get some more great shuteye. ::knocks on wood::
So there are our sleep struggles of late. I wanted to get this down so that I can reference it later, but also so that I can put this out there for others who have gone through this, or are going through this... to offer support or to get advice! What about any of you with kids? Any advice to add?
* This is a link that describes the whole type of crier and CIO thing a lot better then I could: Clicky
have you tried letting her "cry it out"? it's sooo hard, but it is worth it in the end. we started doing it with jonathan when he was like 9m because he was like killing us at bed time.
ReplyDeleteNope, Trav and I agreed that for us, CIO is not an option. (See my reasoning in post.)
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