So, I think everyone who is still reading here knows our many
struggles with sleep. It is not always a pretty sight! Basically,
Emma is not a huge fan of sleep, especially the process of falling to sleep or staying asleep for long. Up until now she has been a very light sleeper who transfers poorly, and needs a lot of help getting to sleep in the first place. Rocking, bouncing, wearing her in a sling, a bottle or, most often, breastfeeding, are what we tend to rely on, which is all fine by themselves, but even then our bedtime routine can be hours. Same with naps. By the time she is down, we are ready to sleep as well. But then she wakes again. Ha!
Things have been getting better, in some areas, however. Hope is not lost! She is sleeping more soundly at night, often transferring to the crib without complaint (occasionally even the car seat!), and sleeping for at least one 4 hour stretch at night, sometimes more. Nighttime wakings have definitely reduced.
However, naps are a different beast, and often are not happening much at all. The whole getting her to sleep thing is still extremely irregular, and often she exhibits signs of being Very Tired yet unable to get to sleep. I really feel like something Needs To Be Done, but alas, what that is is somewhat a mystery. A lot of folks we know have gone the Cry It Out route (though that means a variety of things to a variety of people) but leaving her crying alone still does not feel right to us. But what else to do?
I had heard of someone from a local parenting support center (where my lactation consultant came from as well) who did consultations about parenting issues, mainly sleep. So last week we called and booked a session. It is time. It is time to get some sleep! We talked with her about all sorts of things, describing what works and what doesn't, what we've tried and what we have not. She asked a ton of questions about our routines, our room, about Emma's temperament (and ours) and gave us a lot of good tips and things to try. She was very reassuring! Here is a list of some things she suggested (definitely related to our specific situation, of course):
Changes in the sleep environment: Moving out the dog to eliminate her sounds & movement, which can disturb sleep (not sure if we'll do that, she is pretty quiet, really). Installing blackout shades. Adding a curtain to our stairwell dampen noise coming from downstairs. And the biggie -- giving Emma her own space to sleep, instead of moving her between the crib & bed the way we have been doing (its okay to nap in a different place, however). She mentioned that the main problem with wanting her to stay in the crib until we come to bed is that she cannot tell time. Hmm. Interesting.
For us, since we still want her in the room/cosleeping, it might be a mattress on the floor next to our bed, or taking a side off our crib and attaching it to our bed. That way we can still cuddle/comfort her and lie with her, if we want. She can be reassured by our closeness,and I can breastfeed at night easily. And it would be her dedicated space, she would always sleep there.
Bedtime routine: Becoming much more consistent about getting dinner on the table earlier, 1-2 hours before bedtime (so probably on the table by 5:30, 6 tops). Moving bedtime to a very consistent time, somewhere between 7-8pm. Paring down the bedtime routine to less than an hour. Possibly eliminating the bath because it is stimulating and takes a long time, maybe introducing a family walk instead. Talking through the routine, telling her everything that is going to happen, and reading stories about babies sleeping. Also (eeks!) putting breastfeeding at the start of the routine, not the end. Ha!!! Having both of us share/rotate putting her to bed or nighttime duties. Finally, having both of us coming to bed at the same time later in the evening, to minimize distractions.
AM: Establishing a firm early wake-up time (5:30-6:30, when Daddy gets up) instead of lounging in bed nurse/dozing for several hours (drat, I have to set an alarm?!?) Getting up earlier and eliminating that crappy sleep for both of us sleep should help with the earlier bedtime, as well as naps.
The biggie: There will most likely will be some sort of cry it out-ish thing with regards to not breastfeeding to sleep. That is going to be the hard one! It will probably be us lying with her while she cries, or if our presence is making it worse, eventually leaving and coming to comfort every 5 min or however often we decide. She also suggested trying to cut back to one nighttime feed instead of the current 2-3, and trying to push that first one to 5 hours after the last one (currently it is more like 4). Both of these nursing related things we are supposed to wait on until after a trip we are taking in a few weeks, and after she has mastered walking, since it is too much to be working on huge developmental things and sleep as well.
Our Homework: Writing up a plan, emailing it to her to review, sticking to it, and tweaking it as necessary.
So, as you can see, not much focus on naps, darn it! But she seemed to really think that by working on these other issues, the naps might take care of themselves (or we can live with short/less than ideal naps, if nighttime sleep is good). She did mention several times that daytime and nighttime sleep are "different animals" and that nighttime sleep was more important to work on first. Also that right now we are dealing with her moving from two naps to one which is going to take several months to work out. She suggested just trying/offering naps when she seems sleepy, no matter what time it is (which is what we have been doing).
Even though some of these things are stuff we have read/thought of, it was good to get an outside opinion and some new suggestions, as well. For some reason (perhaps because I hate early mornings?) I really hadn't thought of moving up our wakeup time, which should help shift everything a few hours earlier. Doh! We tried it today and it really worked well!
