Monday, November 24, 2008

Sleep Update

Since several of you have asked I thought I would give a quick update on how the sleeping business is going. It's, well, it's going. Last Monday was the first night we committed to putting her down in the crib and she slept there without a peep from 7:45 pm to 6:00 am. I of course, didn't sleep a wink. We crossed our fingers and hoped it wasn't a fluke.... but of course it was. The next 2 nights she tossed and turned and screamed and demanded to be held. Approximately every 2 hours or so. We obliged her because we decided it would be too traumatic (for her and for us) to have to sleep in the crib AND cry it out at the same time.

So, for the past 4 nights or so this is the routine:
7:45: bedtime routine, Norah gets put down in the crib and passes out.
8:30: Norah wakes up screaming because she's on her stomach. I go in and get her back to sleep, takes about a half hour.
9:30: Norah wakes up screaming because she's on her back. BVZ goes in and gets her down, either in 2 minutes or 20 minutes.
10:30: we go to bed. This seems to help her sleep because we aren't up and about and making noise.
3:30 to 4:30: Norah wakes up, not screaming, but thrashing around and really fussing. Feeding her calms her immediately, but she usually takes 30 to 40 minutes to get back to sleep. She won't stay in the crib at this point, so I try for about an hour and then give up and bring her back to bed with us.

I think this is our biggest problem right now:

Her instinct is to flip over on her tummy, but 1) she can't get back, and 2) sometimes it freaks her out. One night she actually put herself to sleep on her tummy which prompted several phone calls on my part (to my mom, to the advice nurse...) and she seemed content there. But she hasn't been able to do it again, and I am not going to actively put her down on her stomach. As a result, she usually ends up back here:

BVZ wants to employ some cry it out techniques when we get back from Thanksgiving at Grandma Geri's. We'll see.

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