Baby sleep battles
Monday last week at Sophia’s doctor appointment he checked her ears and throat and all is well. Friday and Saturday were actually her worse two days although she was a little grumpy on Sunday. By Monday, all she had left of her cold was a runny nose. The doctor said that we could always give her some baby Tylenol because she can get the same achy pains adults do with their colds.
While we were in the office, we told the nurse about Sophia’s napping habits or lack thereof. There have been times the child has stayed up for 12 to 14 hours straight, or only had a couple ten-minute naps during the day. She might fall asleep when nursing but as soon as I set her down she’s wide-awake, and I’m not about to hold her ALL DAY LONG. Car rides usually work but we didn’t invest in one of those detachable infant carriers so she wakes up when the ride is over and we actually have to go in the store or back in the house.
I use a front pack when I go grocery shopping that she’ll sometimes fall asleep then too, but getting back into the car wakes her up again. I know those detachable infant car seat carriers make things easier when at a restaurant and just going in and out of the car to run errand all over town without disturbing the baby, but then you have to carry the weight of the seat and the child and that gets HEAVY! I’d rather carry a 15-pound baby against my body than a 15-pound baby with a 10-pound seat by hand. Those seats can be expensive and aren’t used for very long anyway. Sophia will be able to sit up on her own in about three months (probably less) so she’ll be able to sit in restaurant highchairs and shopping carts soon besides, her lack of napping is more of a problem on the days that I stay home. – I haven’t figured that one out either.
I would wear the front pack around the house but about the only chore I can do with it on is vacuum the house and we don’t have much carpet. I’ve tried hauling laundry up and down the stairs with her in the front pack and I do ok, but I don’t think bending down to put clothes into the drier is good for my back, and folding laundry would require much longer arms. The same goes for doing dishes and loading the dishwasher with her attached to my front.
So the doctor gave us a printout that was meant to help parents get their baby to bed at night, but he said we might be able to get some tips from it for napping. Because that day Sophia had not slept at all during the day we took the opportunity to use the suggested techniques to switch her usual bedtime from 10pm to 8pm. This special technique was basically – put the kid to bed and let her cry herself to sleep. Oh GOD was it hard!
It said to develop a bedtime routine that starts about thirty minutes before bedtime and that the baby needs to associate the crib with falling sleep instead of falling asleep in my arms. She also needs to learn to calm herself to sleep without me holding her, swaying, driving, using “white noise”, standing on my head, or juggling axes lest she later learns to wake up in the middle of the night without needing to be fed and require me to juggle the axes some more.
The routine I started was to change her diaper, put her in nightclothes, close the curtains, put some of her baby things away for the night, turn on the nightlight, and offer to nurse her even if she just ate thirty minutes ago. I nursed her until she showed her usual sign of not being hungry which is to attach and detach A LOT and look up and smile at me. The looking up and smiling at me is what made the next step so incredible difficult because she was being all cute and sweet and here I am about to do something that I know she’ll hate. I put her in her crib still awake like the magic doctor sheet said to do. I kissed her and told her goodnight. She smiled and cooed. Oh why do you have to make it so difficult? I made the “goodnight” brief just like the magic doctor paper said and I left the room. She quietly entertained herself for a few minutes and then the crying, screaming and crocodile tears began. According to our directions, we were to check on the baby every five to fifteen minutes and talk softly to her without any harshness in our voices. Visits should be brief and boring. We could give her kisses, hold her hands, etc. But under no circumstances were we to pick her up (well ok maybe if there's a fire we can pick her up). We were to only be in the room for a minute and you know that Kurt was very precise following each guideline to the letter. I pointed out that our directions gave no time limit for the whole process. I mean at what point each night do you just give in and start over the next night? Because she eats about every two hours during the day we decided if she isn’t asleep in that time I could pick her up to feed and change her. Every ten minutes we took turns to go check on her. On my turns, Kurt came with me because he didn’t trust that I wouldn’t pick her up and only stay a minute. The torture ended after an hour and a half when Sophia threw in the towel.
I didn’t follow this technique with naps because to try it four times a day would just drive me insane and I think it would just be too much. Despite me not changing anything during the day, Tuesday was a breeze. She took three good naps (each lasting about an hour) and fell asleep within thirty minutes that night. Wednesday she took three ok naps (each only lasting about 30 minutes) and took an hour and a half to fall asleep that night. Thursday was a no nap day and it took an hour and a half to get her to sleep that night. I blame Kurt for falling for the old, “I need a drink of water” routine. On one of his turns to check on Sophia, he checked to see if she was hungry by letting her use his pinky as a pacifier. He didn’t realize that’s all she was doing was using it to calm herself. I tried to nurse her and knew right away that she wasn’t actually hungry but I sat with her anyway just as much for her comfort as my own. Friday and Saturday night we only had to check on her once on each night. Sunday night she actually prompted me to check the time when she started to fall asleep while nursing – it was 7:30! Not only was she right on cue but that night she slept right through the night for NINE AND A HALF HOURS STRAIGHT!! Monday night and tonight she fell right to sleep on her own. Each night the screaming a wailing became more fussing than calling out to save her life which was nice, and with exception to Saturday she did pretty well with naps too.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:25am
I know some adults who could use a routine like this… *chuckle* It’s great that she adjusted so quickly and seemingly easily. Does she still smile and coo at you all cute-like, or is she mad and holding a grudge? *wink*
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January 16th, 2008 at 2:16pm
I have 4 children and I used this method with all of them. I actually did the training during the day and was more lax at night (for the sake of my own sleep). Once they got the hang of it during the day, they just continued at night. My first born actually slept through the night at 4 weeks (way earlier than any of the others)!!!! It didn’t take long before they would go to sleep with no fussing at all.
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January 20th, 2008 at 8:59pm
Kimbery - I know we’re married but I’m not gonna feed you like *that*
She’s not holding a grudge so I’m beginning to question if she’s really mine 
Thanks for the comment Cassie
we started at night 1) cause she had not slept all day that day and 2) cause we were going to move her bed time up two hours so that when she does go to sleep at her bed time we’ll have a two hour break from baby before our bedtime.
January 26th, 2008 at 3:15pm
How old is Sophia? My baby is 11 weeks old. She has similar napping problem like Sophia. I read about the Ferber method but not sure if she is too young for me to try it.
January 26th, 2008 at 9:33pm
I didn’t know it was called the Ferber method, but after receiving your comment I looked it up. According to http://www.babycenter.com Ferber never designated an age in which to begin, but they suggest, “wait until your baby is physically and emotionally ready to sleep through the night, usually between 4 and 6 months of age.”
My goal was not to have her sleep through the night but to get her to fall asleep in her crib without me having to rock, sway, bounce, juggle kittens until she is in a deep enough sleep for me to carefully move her to the crib. I still go running to her at 2am when she needs to nurse.
Sophia was three and a half months when we started the technique and after eight days putting her to bed only involved about ten minutes of mild fussing before she fell asleep on her own and once she did it for bedtime nap time just fell into place. Anytime she starts showing signs of being sleepy I put her in her crib and she goes to sleep without protest. For us it has worked wonders, but last week in the “living with baby” class I go to I learned of another method. They told us about a book called, “The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night” By Elizabeth Pantly in the class they said it would take longer than the method I used, but you don’t have to deal with the crying.
Good luck Joyce - I hope you find something that works for you and your baby.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:48pm
I know how you feel. I tried that technique with my daughter when she was a baby and older and it never worked. She would never stop screaming. I had to start rocking her to sleep in the rocking chair, but then when I carefully picked her up and put her in the crib, she would wake up and start screaming again. That didn’t work too good either, but that’s what I stuck with. I am glad you had such good luck. My daughter has always been strong-willed, even as a baby, and she can go on and on for hours non stop.