Over the last 3 months sleep in our house has been deteriorating. From early on, Nathan was a pretty great nighttime sleeper. I got cocky. I bragged about it. And then I went back to work AND Nathan got a cold AND decided he didn't like bottles. So he started waking up more often.
I felt guilty because he wasn't eating with Cathy.
I felt guilty because he was sleeping and eating fine before I went back to work.
I felt guilty.
So I fed him. After a month he was definitely waking up in the middle of the night at least once to eat. That was not great, but it wasn't the worst. Things got worse.
And here we are. For the last few weeks it's been 2-3 times a night. It's pretty much about as bad as it was when he was born. Needless to say, we're not exactly high functioning. I'm not against crying it out, and I suspect there will been an element of it in our plan down the road. Everything I read about night wakings/feedings says, babies don't need to eat at night after the first few months (which I knew, I had that baby at one time), and it's just for comfort. Those people don't feel his diapers at night. The boy was EATING. Cutting him off cold turkey seemed overly harsh. But I need to put a stop to it. Mama, Dad, and baby need better sleep.
There's some comfort in knowing that I'm not the first to find myself in this position. Liz has a post about Leah at 6 months. I literally could write it myself (were I as good a writer as my sister.) Basically, I just need to change the names.
Here are some clips that pretty well sum up our situation. I've underlined the parts that feel especially true for us.
"She was such a champion sleeper naturally from the get-go. For such a long time she was figuring out this sleep thing all on her own, and I figured she was just that good. She met most of the Babywise milestones of sleep without any significant crying at all for the first few months.
But...
We got off the rails about a month ago. I figured she was going through a growth spurt or something and just needed to eat in the night for a while. (What was I thinking? I wasn't, I was tired.) I assumed she'd be back to her old ways in no time. (Again, what was I thinking?) Instead, things have steadily deteriorated.
She goes down beautifully and easily for most naps, and without a peep at bedtime. But then she wakes up before she's really had enough sleep after a short nap, and wakes up often all night. If I don't feed her, she wakes up every half hour for a few hours at a time. In recent weeks she never sleeps longer than 3 hours. It's like having a newborn all over again, but actually this is worse than our newborns ever were. Sometimes I can get her back to sleep without feeding her, but often I give up. My own lack of discipline has done this to her, and to me, and as tough as the solution is likely to be, it's necessary. The cumulative effect of these weeks has been an increasingly sleepy mama, who tries not to be unbelievably crabby."
I'm sorry for that last part, Brian. I really, really, really am.
I've relegated Brian to the basement while I enact Operation: Feed Less at Night to Get More Sleep. The pressure of knowing that letting Nathan fuss keeps him up too is part of what made me get up and feed him in the first place. There's enough pressure during this process without that stress. This way, Brian's getting some good uninterrupted sleep, and I can call the shots without it affecting anyone but me. The trade off is that if we do need to do some tough love, we'll switch places, and I'll get to sleep in the basement while Brian plays bad cop.
What I've read says to target each feeding individually, but if that were the plan, we'd be at this for months. My super technical approach has been to, get this, feed less overall until it's just not worth his time to wake up.
Just after a day or two I noticed that his first feeding (usually around 8am) has started to go much better. He's hungrier and more focused.
I've decided the hours between 10 and 7 are my golden hours. The goal will be no feeding during that time. Here's our progress so far. WARNING: this log is boring and mostly for historical record so I can see the progress (or lack thereof).
Pre-Operation, I timed a few nights and it was around 15 minutes of nursing time a night, but I was up for about a half an hour per feeding once you include everything.This assumes I was able to fall back asleep right away.
Dec. 8th, Saturday (10 minutes):
12:25 am - Woke up and fussed back to sleep after about 10 minutes. I didn't go in or feed him.
1:23 am - Woke up crying. Went in and nursed him for 5 minutes.
4:00 am - Woke up fussing. Went in after fussing and nursed him for 5 minutes.
Sunday (5 minutes):
3:20 - Woke up fussing. Didn't go back to sleep. Went in and fed him for 5 minutes.
Monday (4.5 minutes):
2:23 am - Woke up fussing. After 15 minutes I went in, changed his diaper, and fed him for 4.5 minutes. Went back to sleep without a fuss.
6:45 am - Woke up crying, went in and gave him his pacifier. Fussed 2 minutes and fell back asleep. Slept until 8:00 and woke up happy.
Tuesday (15.5 minutes):
Super stuffy with a cold. We regressed a bit. Lots of crying when I tried to soothe or stop a nursing. Then again, I'm not sure it's great timing to sleep train when he's sick. (For the record, this cold was a pussy cat until this night.) He seemed pretty hungry, but after feeling his diapers I don't think he ate as much as he was even a week ago.
1:00 am - 7.5 minutes
4:23 - 8 minutes
Wednesday (6 minutes):
1:46 am - Serious crying. Nursed 6 minutes.
6:00 am - Woke up crying. Waited 2 minutes before going in and giving him a pacifier. Kept crying off and on for 2 minutes and back asleep. Woke up after a few minutes and fussed/cried off and on for another 5 minutes and back asleep. Continued for 25 minutes and was out again. Slept until 8.
Thursday (3.5 minutes):
11:30 pm - woke up, pacifier in, back to sleep. (Just unfortunate that I had fallen asleep at 11)
4:00 am - woke up, fussed/cried off and on for 10 minutes. Put in pacifier, fussed /cried off and on for 5 minutes, asleep. 5 minutes later awake fussing/crying. Rinse and repeat for an hour. At that point I figured he may actually be hungry considering that he kept waking up. Went in and fed him for 3.5 minutes. He fell back asleep in 2 minutes (and stayed asleep). I did not.
Friday (0 Minutes!)
11:30 pm - woke up crying, went in and put the pacifier in, but didn't do the trick. Held, bounced, and finally got him calmed down. I think this was teething rearing its head because he really just seemed to want to be held, and his cheeks were fire engine red and quite warm. I really can't wait for these teeth to show themselves already.
6:45 am - let out a few yelps and kept on sleeping. Woke me up, but he slept til 8:15. First night of no night feedings in recent memory!
Saturday (2.5 minutes)
5:00 - awake and not falling back asleep with the pacifier. Fed a few minutes and put him back down. Cried for 20 seconds and was asleep in 2 minutes.
Sidenote: During the day he had really great feedings. Focused, calm, awesome.
Sunday (3-6 minutes - didn't time it. Too tired.)
11-12 - Woke up twice needing a little comfort
3 - Woke up, pacifier, back to sleep (rinse and repeat at 4.)
5 - Woke up, pacifier, sleep, up, sleep, up, pacifier, crying. Finally fed him for 2 minutes at 6 hoping it would take the edge off. Resulted in harder and more crying until I broke down around 6:30 and just fed him for a few more minutes. He was so exhausted I don't think he even ate that much more but fell asleep nursing. I was so grateful I didn't even care. Not my best work.
I haven't been changing his diapers in the middle of the night for the past few nights because "they" say it is a teaches the baby not to eat as much at night. Brian said it was the heaviest diaper he's ever felt in the morning. Makes me wonder if that's part of why he kept waking up. Maybe I should have changed it. Hmmm. Thinking it may be time to think about crying it out.
Today:
And that's where we are. I got him from eating 2-3 times a night for a total of 15 minutes, to once for 2-5. In one week. Not too bad. Now it's time for the second phase of attack.
I slumbered last night in the basement (best night of sleep in MONTHS) and Brian took over baby duty. By his account, last night "wasn't too bad." I wouldn't know.
I do know that he went to sleep with his usual amount of talking/singing and there was crying when he woke up 45 minutes later. And it killed me. Then I went to the basement. I slept 8+ hours and was presented with a dressed and happy baby at 7:30 for me to feed. Fingers crossed things improve over the next few days. A baby who sleeps through the night again would be the best of Christmas presents.
Oh, and he drank 8oz in his first bottle today. Methinks someone is getting with the program.
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