GoBlue
11-02-2009, 02:33 AM
Hi, and please help!
DD is 7.5 months old, and over the past 2-3 weeks, we've seen a marked decline in her nighttime sleep. Here's the story.....
At around 4 months old, she was sleeping through the night (7 or7:30pm until 6am) and taking two short-but-well-timed naps, around 9am and noon, and usually snoozed in the late afternoon as well. She started daycare around the same time, so her daytime naps have been well-protected (and have gotten longer). But (thank you, daycare), she's had a series of colds, and she started waking again at night at about 5-6 months. Not really a problem, b/c she would nurse and go right back to sleep).
In the past couple of weeks, those nighttime nursings have turned into 1-3 hour wake-ups where she is bright-eyed and ready to party. ONe night DH took her to play in the living room, and she got tired and passed out in 30 minutes. Most nights, I end up holding her or bringing her into bed with me until she falls back asleep. But her protests are getting worse. In retrospect, we probably haven't helped ourselves and have reinforced this, but both of us are at the end of our rope......we've got to fix this! (As an aside, we have no signs of teeth yet, and I've tried Motrin at bedtime a couple of times without success).
So.....tonight she fell asleep at 7 after nursing only (usually nurses AND takes 4-6 ounces of formula.....I had a breast abscess when she was 2 months old, and have had supply issues since). She wole up at 10:45, had her diaper changed, nursed again, and downed 6 ounces of formula. Looked like she was going to drop back off to sleep, but then started coughing (getting over yet anouther cold), woke herself up, and is ready to party. I tried to sooth her and get her to close her eyes, but without success. So I decided to suck it up and let her figure it out on her own, I caved at 15 minutes, picked her up (bad move, I think), wiped her face (boogers everywhere), and she calmed down for 5 minutes but was still wide awake and then got fussy in my arms. So I put her down again, and now it's been 15 minutes of loud crying. There have been a few pauses, but she's still going strong.
Am I doing this right? I can't stand the idea of letting her cry unless I know that she's not hungry, wet/dirty, or feverish. Tonight, since we just did those things, I felt like it was okay to give it a try. I HATE hearing her cry, and the idea that she would think that I'm not there for her makes ME want to cry (I'm sure the chronic sleep deprivation doesn't help my crying!), but we've got to get this under control.
I'll take any words of wisdom, experience, advise, support, hugs, etc that the group has to offer.......Thanks!
DD is 7.5 months old, and over the past 2-3 weeks, we've seen a marked decline in her nighttime sleep. Here's the story.....
At around 4 months old, she was sleeping through the night (7 or7:30pm until 6am) and taking two short-but-well-timed naps, around 9am and noon, and usually snoozed in the late afternoon as well. She started daycare around the same time, so her daytime naps have been well-protected (and have gotten longer). But (thank you, daycare), she's had a series of colds, and she started waking again at night at about 5-6 months. Not really a problem, b/c she would nurse and go right back to sleep).
In the past couple of weeks, those nighttime nursings have turned into 1-3 hour wake-ups where she is bright-eyed and ready to party. ONe night DH took her to play in the living room, and she got tired and passed out in 30 minutes. Most nights, I end up holding her or bringing her into bed with me until she falls back asleep. But her protests are getting worse. In retrospect, we probably haven't helped ourselves and have reinforced this, but both of us are at the end of our rope......we've got to fix this! (As an aside, we have no signs of teeth yet, and I've tried Motrin at bedtime a couple of times without success).
So.....tonight she fell asleep at 7 after nursing only (usually nurses AND takes 4-6 ounces of formula.....I had a breast abscess when she was 2 months old, and have had supply issues since). She wole up at 10:45, had her diaper changed, nursed again, and downed 6 ounces of formula. Looked like she was going to drop back off to sleep, but then started coughing (getting over yet anouther cold), woke herself up, and is ready to party. I tried to sooth her and get her to close her eyes, but without success. So I decided to suck it up and let her figure it out on her own, I caved at 15 minutes, picked her up (bad move, I think), wiped her face (boogers everywhere), and she calmed down for 5 minutes but was still wide awake and then got fussy in my arms. So I put her down again, and now it's been 15 minutes of loud crying. There have been a few pauses, but she's still going strong.
Am I doing this right? I can't stand the idea of letting her cry unless I know that she's not hungry, wet/dirty, or feverish. Tonight, since we just did those things, I felt like it was okay to give it a try. I HATE hearing her cry, and the idea that she would think that I'm not there for her makes ME want to cry (I'm sure the chronic sleep deprivation doesn't help my crying!), but we've got to get this under control.
I'll take any words of wisdom, experience, advise, support, hugs, etc that the group has to offer.......Thanks!