After talking to some of the moms to 6 month old babies about night sleeping, I decided to experiment. Boy, Emi really hated me for doing that (and Scott, I'm sure who had to go to work the next day!).
Some moms were saying that their babies were sleeping through the night (and I mean from 7 - 7 or so), and that they started doing that at about 3 months. Sure, Emi is not that old yet, but it's never too early to start trying right? Wrong! I also told one of them that we wake her up after falling asleep in her swing, take her to bed and feed her, at about midnight every night. This started me thinking - if we put her to bed instead of the swing, I wonder how long she will sleep?
Bad night:
- Tried to put Emi to bed at 8pm. We let her cry and fuss for about 10 minutes, checked and she was wide awake so we brought her back downstairs with us
- We fed Emi at about 9pm because she was fussy(she's usually asleep and doesn't eat at this time, so maybe this was a sign that it was going to be a bad night)
- Put Emi to bed around 9:45. She was awake, but tired
- Emi woke up at 12:15 (only 15 minutes later than when we usually wake her up). Nursed her instead of giving her a bottle
- Woke up at 3:30. I thought she was just unswaddled and needed a diaper change, which I asked/ordered Scott to do (I now realize that was mean, sorry hon). He put her back to bed, and she cried and howled. So I got up and fed her, then put her back to bed
- Emi was unswaddled again at 4:30. Tried to swaddle and put back to bed, but she started crying again. I picked her up and walked around with her for about 20 minutes (she calmed down when I got my glass of water, but then started crying hard again when we went back upstairs). So as a last resort, I put her on the boob and she fell asleep after 10 minutes or so. Back to bed
- Awake again at 7am. Fed and start of the day
Good night:
Maybe we changed too many things at one (no swing, no bottle, ealier time to bed), so we armed ourselves with a bottle ready for the first wake up
- Bath, then feed at 8pm
- In bed by 9:45 or so
- I went to bed at 10:30, with bottle ready to be made at the bedside for the next time she wakes up
- Woke up at 4am, completely surprised that she didn't wake up. Checked to make sure she was still breathing and alive, sigh of releif, and waited for her to start crying for about 15 minutes convinced that I jinxed it. When no crying came, decided to go down and pump since I could not roll over in bed, I was so engorged.
- Emi woke up around 5:15 - Scott and I were in shock and amazement. Fed and back to bed.
- Awake at 8:15. Fed and start of the day
So was it the bath? Was it Murphy's reverse law, that I was armed and prepared with a bottle? Or was it that she was so tired from the bad night, that she needed this good night to catch up on her beauty sleep? I guess we'll find out tonight if some kind of pattern is emerging...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Oh the memories, Colette. I wish I had a magic answer for you...unfortunatly, it was a roll of the dice for us too. Just remember to really sleep on the "good" nights. :) It does get better.
If there's one thing I've learned with the second: all kids are different. What worked for #1 doesn't work for #2.
Happy to talk to you about our approaches to both, just give me a shout if you want some ideas. Keeping in mind, of course that our first slept like a champ from 5 months on, and our second...well, we're still working on her.
Post a Comment