Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Sleepless Nights, Exhausting Mornings

I don't know what went wrong with our awesome sleeper that we had a few months ago. It has been pretty awful for a month or two now. I wish I knew that it was just a phase or a tooth was coming through because it's the not knowing why she's crying 4+ times a night that's killing me!!  
When I check on her, sometimes she's rolling around fussing and crying and I'll let her soothe herself back to sleep and sometimes that works and other times she will sit up and cry until someone saves her. The only way she calms down is if I feed her and I know she probably gets hungry through the night but 4+ times?! It seems when she sits up that she won't soothe herself and she has been sitting up a lot through the night. Last night she went to bed around 9:30 and woke up at 12:00, 1:30, 4:00 and was up for the day at 6:30. She fell asleep at 7:45 for a nap since she usually doesn't wake up until 7:15 or so. 
Every night doesn't look like this but more times than not it does. Are there any helpful tips from all you momma's out there?! Pretty soon I'll be drinking coffee all day just to keep up with my crawling, getting into everything baby my energy up. 
My coffee is now gone so please excuse me while I go fill up before little one wakes from her nap ;) 


Save me, Mama!!! 

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7 comments:

  1. Mya went through this starting around 10 1/2 months and it felt like HELL. She would pull herself up in her crib and wake me up screaming. Our ped told me that its common for babies to wake up and instead of just stirring and going back to sleep like they did before, the sit or stand and wake themselves up too much to be able to put themselves back to sleep. It's rough, but it was just a phase for us. Hope that helps! I know it's hard but stay strong momma, it'll pass :)

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    1. How long did it last for Mya?! I'm just worried ours isn't a phase. She doesn't know how to soothe herself very well and I'm afraid it's going to get worse. :(

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  2. Harper did the same exact thing around her age. (She has never slept through the night anyways), but it seemed like once she started crawling and standing up she would NEVER stay sleeping for more than an hour! So frustrating! I eventually couldn't deal with it so I would just put her in the crib and walk out and she would just sit in there for like 45 minutes until she would finally fall asleep... And then I would bring her back into bed with me lol oops. Sorry no real advice because she is still doing the same thing and not sleeping till around midnight now so I need help too!! #pullingmyhairout ;)

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    1. How long did it last for Harper?! I'm just going to have to let her cry it out I think. As much as it sucks, I think that it will help in the long run?! I hope! ;)

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  3. Hang in there, for one! It will get better! I know you don't want to hear this - but the only thing that worked for us was letting her cry! Soooo brutal but just as the books said, it got better each night. Try this website - troublesometots.com. It was super helpful for me!

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    1. I was up late reading everything on that webiste!!! It's sooo helpful! Thank you :)

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  4. Hey Jocelyn!

    Our little one is 7 months old and at 6 months our Dr. told us she didn't need to be waking at night to eat anymore, she was just using it as a mechanism to soothe herself back to sleep. So we bit the bullet and did cry it out. We used the Ferber method so we could still go in and check on her (some CIO methods are cold turkey). We gave her her bottle, put her to bed with a little lovey, and if she woke up crying, went in at 3 minutes, 8 minutes, 15 minutes and then every 10 minutes thereafter. We would shhhh her and tell her it was time to go to sleep, put a passy in her mouth and (as hard as it was) turn around and walk out. The first night we didn't even offer the bottle and she would fuss/play with her lovey then cry, then we would console her at the timed intervals, and then she would be quiet for a minute or two and the cycle would repeat. Eventually she wore herself out. I had been reading "Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Baby" and it offers some great information about how critical it is for babies to sleep and for them to teach themselves how to go to sleep. It says in the book that is our first big task as parents to teach them how to sleep on their own. (And I figured if she was going to be up all night anyways, she might as well be learning how to go to sleep!) It was a hard night, she cried in a cycle of playing/fussing for 1 hour. The next 6 nights she slept through the night from 7-7!! She had a couple more cry it out moments a week later but for shorter period of time. Now if she does wake up at night, I sometimes see her sitting/playing on the monitor and she will play quietly by herself for 10-30 minutes and then go back to sleep on her own. I know it's a hard decision to make and a very personal one, but wanted to share our story in case it could help you! Good luck (:

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