Ok, so I couldn't decide which picture I wanted to post for this week. So, you are getting all of them. Eleanor enjoys turning the pages of her books and tries to grab them while mommy and daddy are reading to her. She also likes to try and eat them. Hence, the mouth open in the first and last photos. On another note...calling all moms...I need some advice. I am not one to normally seek out parenting advice on my blog, but we are in need of some help in the sleep area. Eleanor was a great sleeper from birth until just about a month ago. Before we moved to IL she was sleeping through the night and taking two great naps a day and a short cat nap in the evening. Since we moved, our precious angel is no longer sleeping through the night and is having trouble taking a good nap. She is having frequent episodes of night waking which are troubling to this mommy. Daniel and I have tried the "cry it out" method, but E gets so cranked up that she is then incapable of going back to sleep. Our other option is to get up every time she cries out and put her paci back in her mouth. This is what we have resorted to, but results in very cranky parents after an hour of trips back and forth to E's room.
Naptime is another area of concern. The 45 minute intruder shows up every day during at least one nap. Again we have tried the cry it out method to no avail. We also go to E, put her paci in, soothe her etc., but sometimes this does not work. When it does not work E will cry and cry. We can tell she is tired but cannot get her to go back to sleep.
Another issue we have encountered is that E is getting too big to be swaddled. Before you jump out of your skin, yes we still swaddle her. She has been swaddled before bedtime and naptime since birth because she is a mover and a shaker and if she is not swaddled she will not fall asleep. We have had to graduate from the single swaddle to the double swaddle, but now even the double swaddle can be outdone by our little Houdini. Last night we swaddled E before bed and put her down. A few hours later when we were ready for bed we checked in on her and she was out of her swaddle (this occurs almost every night at some point). Last night we decided to not reswaddle her and see how she did. She slept fine until 4:30am (this is about the time the night waking begins). When I went in to check on her I found that she had completely flipped. Her head was now in the place where her feet had once been and she was diagonal.
So, HELP! I know this is a long post but this mommy and her dear husband need a good night's sleep. Do you have any suggestions?
6 comments:
normally i am so great about telling other people what to do, but having the same kind of baby (ie one who, once awake, will not put herself back to sleep without eating, no matter what) am going to send you digital hugs. but i think that she'll probably settle down once she gets used to not being swaddled and used to her new room.
since she's kicking out of her blankets, i'd feel nervous having all of thse blankets in her bed.
i am no help, just commiserating. but! wait! okay, we have this little thing that projects lights onto the ceiling. back in the day when bree still slept on her back, we'd turn that on and it was distract her long enough for her to fall asleep. so maybe?
sending you hugs and thoughts of no bags under the eyes. xoxo
um i think she just misses her aunt beth, gg, and maybe even g-pops...so maybe it's time to come home!!!
Is it possible that she is teething and waking up from that? Also, have you thought about something like this?: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2609022
I know it's not much help, but I pray it's a phase and she'll adjust soon!
HI Gloria, I'm a friend of Kendra and Meredith and K sent me the link to your blog. I wish I had some great answers to tell you that would fix your little one's sleep problems, but I don't. I can, however, totally sympathize with you! Elliot, my 8 month old, didn't sleep well at night until about six months. We were like zombies. I'll ask one of the girls for your email address, if you don't mind, and maybe I have some ideas for you. Hang in there!
Ok, so this is SOOOO late as I have been keeping up with you on FB and not checking blogs as often! I just wanted to say HANG IN THERE. I used to have "all the answers" until we had Avery. She didn't sleep to the night until she was over a year old and we tried EVERYTHING that had worked like a charm with the first two. My best advice is do whatever works and buys you the most sleep. She will eventually sleep, I promise. :) And when you come to my house maybe, just maybe, she will be so exhausted from all of my rambuctious brood that you will get to sleep IN! :)
Hey Gloria, ok just so you know I answered your question about black beans in the comments of my Black Beard post. With that out of the way, maybe (?) I can offer some helpful advice about sleeping.
I'll say that THE most helpful book I've read about sleep is "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" by Ferber. I learned a ton from that book but one important thing I learned that babies will pretty much only sleep a certain number of hours in a 24 hr period - and they will do it consistently. Like, for example, Alex sleeps 13-14 hours a day like clock work. If he gets too much sleep one day, he takes away from it on the next. I was having the same nap problem you are although I didn't have the night waking issue. I was putting him to bed at 6:30 or 7 during that time. I got him up at 7 (which was great for us - yay! baby's in bed for 12 hours!) but really interfered with his daytime naps. Bottom line was he just wasn't tired enough during the day to sleep longer than 45 minutes but he couldn't cope with such short naps. That makes for a super fussy kid!
So we had to intervene and help him reorganize his sleep. We gradually made his bedtime later and woke him up at 6 every day. It took about 2 weeks to totally adjust his schedule and there were lots of times where we were struggling to keep him up so late. We also adjusted his nap times so that his wake time periods during the day were about 3 hours each. We'd stretch him as far as he could go and sometimes the poor kid would just slowly blink and turn into a wet noodle just before we put him down. Gradually he was tired enough to get over that 45 minute transition.
The Ferber book has some great advice about night waking too. You might check it out. When Alex was not napping well, I found myself at the bookstore at desperate times. =) Ferber helped a ton.
Sorry this is so long - hope it's helpful!
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