You know, I’m always hesitant now to put up posts when I’m feeling low… just because this is a public space and I know I’m feeling vulnerable and sometimes it just doesn’t feel smart to put it out there. So I really want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. It helps so much to know that other people have struggled, to know that there are many ways of doing things, and just to get hugs and support. It means a lot.<\/p>\n
We had such an easy time with Kate for the first 4-6 months… yes I held her for naps and she went to bed when we did (and later she slept on me until I went to bed) but man was it all easy. She slept so well, through anything. I was the most rested mother of a newborn ever (or so it felt like it). Yes she woke frequently to nurse, but that barely woke me up at all, I’d switch sides and get comfy and we’d fall asleep again. The turn for the worse was when she stopped falling asleep every time I nursed her, when she stopped sleeping so heavily, when she wanted to be DOING things. When her mind kicked into action and her body got all wired and ready to move. The rolling, the crawling, the walking… she’s on the go and she doesn’t want to stop!<\/p>\n
Here are my goals:
\n* Have Kate sleep as much as she needs, which as far as I know is 12 hours at night plus 2 naps during the day. (Not every night, but many of them she’s been throwing midnight party sessions.)
\n* Stop waking up every hour crying for me. (I need some time to myself! And I don’t think it’s good for her to have such broken sleep.)
\n* Not get up for the day before 8:00am. (She is now waking up at like 6:30am when she’s in our bedroom – it doesn’t have the room blackout shades like hers does. It’s a major problem for me!)
\n* Be able to fall asleep on her own, without needing me to do x, y and z every time she rouses. (Which is why I’m introducing a lovie and trying to get her in the habit of falling asleep on her belly instead of in my arms.)<\/p>\n
I still don’t know what method I will use to achieve this. We’re going to try something for a week and see how it works, then evaluate and maybe try something different.<\/p>\n
And, yes, the middle of the night party time is almost certainly because of the walking skill she’s working on. She did the same thing with rolling and with crawling. Drives me fucking nuts. I think I almost hate milestones. “She’s rolling! Why isn’t she sleeping?” “She’s crawling! She’s not sleeping.” “She’s walking. Shit.” It’s not every night, and I’m pretty certain it’s not connected with the changes I’ve made, but it sure makes it a lot harder. I’m exhausted from last night, I was super emotional all day, and Kate was wicked tired and didn’t nap well.<\/p>\n
On the GOOD nights (ie, the ones she falls back asleep) I have to admit I’m already seeing an improvement. I have always nursed her at night every time she woke, as it was the quickest and easiest way to get her back to sleep. Part of my plan involves not nursing her between bedtime at midnight, no matter how often she wakes, since I know she’s not doing it out of hunger. Actually what she’d do is cry until I gave her the boob, she’d suck two or three times, then take the paci and fall asleep. It was like she needed to “check in” with the boobie before being able to sleep. The few times I tried to not do it she threw a fit. So yeah, I kind of expected a struggle. There hasn’t been one. I haven’t always been able to get her to fall asleep on her belly without me holding her, some wakings I have to cuddle her back to sleep, but I haven’t once had to pull out the boobie to get her calm. (Other than the over-tired screaming experience last night, but that wasn’t a normal wake-up, that was over-tired hysterics after hours of playing in the dark. I don’t count that.) And I have<\/i> been able to get her to fall asleep by putting her down and sitting beside her, singing and just reaching out to lightly touch her back. It’s progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You know, I’m always hesitant now to put up posts when I’m feeling low… just because this is a public space and I know I’m feeling vulnerable and sometimes it just doesn’t feel smart to put it out there. So I really want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. It helps so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[165],"class_list":["post-3483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sleep"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3483"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3485,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483\/revisions\/3485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}