Sleep Log: Day 12

Here's a little run down since my last sleep post...

Nap score: Sadie-13, Mommy-2

Bedtime score: Sadie-5, Mommy-10

Clearly Sadie is winning this battle...that needs to change.

Why is Sadie's score so high for naps? Because, while Dr. Sears's way of doing things works great at bedtime, it's not so great for nap time. Dr. Sears says to wear your baby to sleep, nurse your baby to sleep, or lay down with your baby until he/she is SOUND asleep and won't wake up when moved. Then and only then should you lay him/her down. And, while this works great at night (which may or may not be due to her medicine right at bedtime), during the day, Sadie will fall asleep nursing, but wake up as soon as I attempt to move. So naps have only been happening with me holding her, sitting still, and even then 45 min at the most. While this has allowed me to watch the first two seasons of Dexter on Netflix, it's not a good long-term plan! Sadie has to be able to nap unassisted and for longer than 45 minutes! Yet, I had no idea how to change this. Stay tuned for my new plan...more on it later.

Sadie's nighttime score wouldn't be so high, except we recently tried to move her into her own bedroom. This ended in a disaster. The first night went okay, with mild sleep regressions. The second night, she wouldn't go down and ended up sleeping with me. The third night I was at the end of my rope and out of desperation tried to "cry it out." This was horrible (just like everyone said it'd be), and ended in Sadie being drugged to sleep (don't worry, it's prescribed and only used in emergencies) finally at 2:00am. The next morning, we had to get her up to go to a dr. appointment, and she was so tired, she actually fell asleep in the car on the way home!! Then slept for another 3 hours!!*

A friend, seeing my desperation and frustration on facebook, let me borrow her book called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Weissbluth. I immediately began to devour this book, which luckily, is focused on nap time.



Dr. Weissbluth says that in order for your child to learn and grow, he/she needs adequate sleep! He also says that child sleep problems lead to depression in moms! I haven't finished reading Dr. Weissbluth's theories and ideas, but we've already started his program.

The biggest component of this sleep program is that your baby should be awake for no more than 2 hours at a time between naps (at Sadie's age...of course as babies get older they can handle more awake time). He says baby should wake up in the morning between 6am and 8am, then about 60-90 minutes after waking, start putting them down for a nap. Putting them down for a nap includes 10-20 minutes of a soothing activity (ie. recreational nursing, bouncing, rocking, lullabys, etc), then whether baby is asleep or not, lay them in their bed. If baby wakes up, let him/her cry for whatever designated time you determine BEFORE they start crying. Never longer than an hour. If baby is still crying at the end of the designated time, go get them, soothe them and start over again. If by the second time baby still isn't napping, keep them up until the next nap time rolls around...or for two more hours. Eventually, baby is 1. going to be tired enough to sleep when you put them in their bed (Dr. Weissbluth hasn't met my daughter, apparently!), and 2. learn that when this routine starts, it should end in sleep.

Of course he has a chapter for extremely fussy or colicky babies that I haven't read yet...but so far Sadie is winning this one too. We've done this for one day and I've gotten her to nap one time. She will literally fall asleep in the bouncer or nursing, then as soon as I move her she'll wake up, and she hasn't quite learned yet how to soothe herself back to sleep. I've tried music during the soothing activity, then carrying the music over to when I lay her down, doesn't work. I've tried making her really tired during awake time, doesn't work. Eventually she will get it, I think the key is to be consistent, and continuing the same routine at nap times.

For now I'm still pretty tired, but there is some relief knowing that she WILL sleep at night and so will I before we start it all over again! And I hope it doesn't take TOO long, because I've got lot's of fun sewing projects waiting for me!

*After discussion with the doctor, it was determined that Sadie has very strong auditory skills, while she is behind visually (it was the developmental psychologist we saw!), so when we moved her to her own room, she could no longer hear our sleeping noises, instead there were new noises and it was scary and lonely. This is why she couldn't sleep in her room...plus it was a different bed. So, we're going to try to slowly move the pack 'n play farther and farther away from our bedroom until it's in her own room, THEN we'll try again to put her in her crib in her room. It may be a little less shocking that way. Needless to say, Sadie is back in our room in the pack 'n play and she's back to sleeping 10-12 hours perfectly happy!