It seems that my sweet baby, while still sweet, has decided to start moving backwards in her progress at night. She has always been a pretty good sleeper, generally just getting up twice in the night (but really would only be once when I start back to work because the second time is usually about 5 or 6 and I would have to get up for work then anyways). Plus she is pretty good about eating, burping, getting a clean diaper and going back to sleep. But not anymore. Oh no...not anymore...
Let's take last night for instance. She was screaming and fussy in the evening so we put her to bed in her crib around 8:30. She was out like a light and slept great until 1:20 a.m. Then she woke up hungry so I got up, fed her, burped her, changed her and put her back down and she went right to sleep. Perfect! But...then she was up just 2 1/2 hours later (which incidentally is her span between feedings during the day...it's always right around 2 1/2 hours between daytime feedings) at 3:45 a.m. This time, it was not so smooth. I changed her first to see if maybe she would just accept a diaper change and go back to sleep. Big mistake. She screamed bloody murder as soon as I moved her to the changing table instead of sitting in the glider to feed her. She wailed all through her diaper change. So then I was definitely going to try to feed her to calm her down and get her to go back to sleep. Yeah...she ate for about 5 minutes and then passed out. So I thought, "No problem...we'll just put you back in the crib and I can go back to sleep." Except that the second I put her down, she started screaming again. I tried the paci which worked okay except that it would fall out of her mouth when she was on the verge of sleep and then she would scream (this is why I generally do not use the paci at night). I tried rocking her, walking with her, burping her...everything. Every time I would put her in her crib, she would cry. Finally in desperation, I turned on the little noise machine. It was on the creepy heartbeat sound. She instantly got quiet and quickly passed out. Sigh! So I crawled back in bed at 4:30 thinking that I could finally get some sleep (if I could get over the fact that it sounded like "The Tell-Tale Heart"). And I did...until 6:00 when she woke up crying again. This time I wasn't even going to try not feeding her. I got up and went through the usual routine and she was again a little fussy going back to sleep in the crib but I got her back down. For one hour. Yup, she was up again at 7. Now, I had planned to start getting up this week around 6:00 to get used to it for when I go back to work next week (yuck, did I really just have to say that I go back to work next week?). However, I acquired a splitting headache somewhere around 4 a.m. so I was trying to catch up on a little sleep. This plan obviously didn't work so well.
And this was not a fluke night! She has been doing this the past couple of nights. Plus, today she has been super fussy. Twice she's fallen asleep so I've tried to put her down for a nap in her crib. Each time it has only lasted about 5-10 minutes before she is frantically crying. This is such a change from my baby of a week ago. She had gotten to where she wouldn't even really cry much anymore. Instead, she would "talk" until I came to get her when she woke up, day or night. It was so sweet...going in there and her looking up at me and saying, "Gheng gheng gheng!"
As I mentioned, I go back to work next week so this is rather bad timing for her to suddenly become a bad sleeper. Plus, I don't want her to now become fussy during the day because I don't want her to stress out the lady who will be watching her. The past few days, it has not been enough to hold her all the time, she also wants you to walk around with her. She has always been such a good girl at entertaining herself. I could put her in the bouncy seat or Boppy lounger and get stuff done around the house and she would just hang out. I hope these days are not lost entirely and that she will be back to her old self. Perhaps she's just going through a growth spurt? Or doesn't feel well? If anyone has suggestions, I'm definitely open to them...
Big stretch! It's tough staying awake all night...
3 comments:
ooooh girl. I can relate. It could be a growth spurt. Ryan goes through these sleep changes a lot. It's usually a phase that will pass. I'm sorry. I'm right there with ya. Good luck with work. Hopefully they will take pity on you if you resemble a zombie. I know my work has. :)
Yes, I just read what your friend Elizabeth posted. Babies can be very fickle sleepers. After my third baby I gave given up on diagnosing "why" and just go into sleep survival mode. She may be having a growth spurt, teething, having an earache...who knows? This too shall pass. For now, I say just do whatever she needs to get back to sleep. In our house, that sometimes means bringing a grumpy baby into our bed and letting her sleep on someone's chest on a rough night. You do whatever works for you. (Sometimes the real-deal tell-tale heart does the trick :)) We've also always tried to seriously limit mid-night diaper changes unless obviously necessary. Do the bare minimum and get everybody back to sleep.
Hope this doesn't last long, Holly. When you are in the middle of it, it feels as though it will never end!
Yeah... What they said
It's just a phase. You will say that for the rest of their lives!
One thing I learned from my babies is ... As soon as you think you have it figured out, they change. Just don't sweat it!
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