Let me give an extended background on Addysin's aweful sleep habits... (feel free to skip over this, its more of a journal entry)
We'll start from day 3. Home from the hospital and up all night. The next few months consisted of me and Addysin hanging out AWAKE seriously most of the night a few times each month because she was so mixed up and I wanted to spend every waking moment (of hers) with her. I couldn't just leave her in her crib because I was an obsessive mother. She never cried. She was just happy and didn't want to sleep so I kept her company. Would I do that now? NO! At 5 months old, we moved to a single bedroom apartment in Minnesota for summer sales. She went to bed when we did at 3 am due to Chris' work schedule! And she slept with us! She has always gone to bed when we do (around midnight, at the earliest). I gave my honest effort from 13 months-24 months but failed time after time at getting her to bed earlier. Sometimes I would get her to bed around 10 and I would feel like super mom. She would do it for 3 nights and I would think "this is my big break! Thank you Heavenly Father!" Then she would snap back into her regular routine. Failure. I just couldn't handle it anymore. Seriuosly couldn't. So I devoted all my energy (which wasn't a whole lot due to lack of sleep with two terrible sleepers) in January to "fixing my children". Caiden wasn't too bad since he was only 5 months, but Addysin was work. By about the middle March (27 months old) she was going to bed at 9 and sleeping untill 7 or 8 in the morning!!!! I did it! (With a lot of help from Chris.) But that was short lived. She now wants to stay up untill 10 or later and when we put her to bed she screams out any reason she can think of to get out of it. "MOM!" "DAD!" "HUNKRY!" "TURSTY!" "SCARED!" "NO, NO, NO!" After we get her calmed down and she sings some songs, she is just wide awake and not tired. Who wants to go to bed not tired? I hate that. So I decided she might be getting too much sleep. If she does take a nap from now on, which I'm positive she still will pretty often, it wont be her usual 2 hours.
This is a special note to first time parents. DONT LET YOUR CHILD DECIDE WHEN HE/SHE WANTS TO SLEEP. AFTER A YEAR, YOU'LL BE SICK OF IT AND THEY ARE HARD TO FIX AT THAT AGE. ENJOY EVERY SECOND WITH THEM DURING THE DAY AND PUT THEM TO BED AT 8.
And a HUGE thanks to a friend for suggesting the book "Twelve Hours Sleep By Twelve Weeks Old" by Suzy Giordano. Its the best and I want every mother to read it before your baby turns 8 weeks. Caiden still wakes up every four hours so obviously I didn't do it right but it taught me a lot and made his sleep habits better than if I let him do whatever he wanted. Also another really interesting sleep book for any age baby/child is "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" by Richard Ferber.
Today was Addysin's first day of NO NAP for the first time in her life! She has almost completed this feat a few times, but then falls dead asleep too early for the night so it becomes a nap and then she goes to bed REALLY late. I always get nervous that that is going to happen (because it always has) but today she stayed awake untill she was eating a waffle for dinner at 7:45. I saw her head slowly falling and her eyes closed as she chewed so I began singing "the wheels on the bus". She, with her eyes literally half shut, tried with all the energy she had to do the motions. When I finished singing, she passed out. I carried her up to her bed, put her jamies on, and that was it. So easy and sooooo nice. I am sad she doesn't need naps, but I would rather have her awake from 8 am-8 pm and sleep from 8 pm-8 am than have a nap and go to bed at 10:00. She is so easy during the day and I desperatly NEED a break at the end of the day.
As for Caiden, he is in bed 12-13 hours (about 8 am-8 pm) at night, but wakes up 2 times to eat. He goes right back to sleep so its not too bad. Its not great though, but soooo much better then Addysin ever was. He takes 1 or 2 naps totalling about 3 hours of napping. He loves his fuzzy blanket and his binky, but only for sleeping- thank goodness!
Guess who's going on a cruise today!
9 years ago
3 comments:
how did you do it? quinn wakes up once a night at about 4 or 5 and i'm dying that he's still doing that at 3.5 months old. i need to thank my lucky stars. i swear once you get a baby to do something, the next week they change it around! why is that?! :)
I feel for you, I really do. I woke up with my first born every 2-3 hours for the first 6 months of her life. She slept in the same room as us and every sound she would make would wake me up. It was not good. At this time we were moving around a lot, and wew erent in a home of our own. Finally when we got our own place we put her in her own room and the sleeping got much better. But still, she would wake up a couple of times. I learned from my second child to not have her in my room very long. I think she was in our room for maybe 3 weeks. She is my god send because she has slept through the night pretty much from birth. I think if you have to go through that much sleep deprivation with some of your children, that heavenly father will bless you with at leaste one child that sleeps well. It already sounds like caiden is already doing much better! Good luck with the no nap thing......I think a lot of moms are in the same boat.
what a great improvement! I love both of those books!!! It is work getting kids to sleep well, huh?? Hope they both keep up the good habits!
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