Introducing the cast of characters
Mari (pronounced MAH-ree): In my biased opinion, the most adorable little girl in the entire world. She'll be five months in two days. Until last month, I was able to more or less live with her night wakings. Typically, she woke up three or four times a night, nursed and usually went straight back to sleep. Sure, sometimes she woke up more often and sometimes she stayed up for an hour or more to fuss in the middle of the night, but those bad nights only occurred once or twice a week.
Until she was about three months old, she didn't seem to have much of a clue when night and day were, so we often kept her up quite late at night, but she napped quite a lot during the day and evening. By early December, we got her bedtime down to 8 PM or so and by mid-December, weaned her from having to be swaddled. I had to stay with her for awhile after she first fell asleep, and when her sleep got lighter after about 45 minutes, I would put a hand on her belly and shush her. Normally she didn't wake up. On good nights, she would stay down for up to four hours and would let me do grown-up things before bed. After that, she typically woke up once every three hours to feed and went straight back to sleep.
Then, around the new year, things got suddenly and inexplicably worse. Suddenly she started waking up as often as every five minutes after appearing to be sound asleep. Sometimes she slept for up to two hours at a stretch, never longer. On average she awoke every half hour or so between 8 PM and midnight, and every hour to two hours thereafter. Often she woke up good and proper before dawn and wouldn't go back to sleep, or would only after more than an hour of rocking. With her waking up so often, I could no longer rely on nursing her to sleep every time, as sometimes she wasn't hungry. I've been constantly exhausted and sometimes feel like I'm starting to lose it.
Karen: I'm the tired mom. But I don't want to make my baby “cry it out.” I know it works for some, but I have serious doubts that it would work for Mari, who can be very persistent and is capable of screaming at the top of her lungs for ages. More importantly, I don't think it would be good for my baby. I think it would lead to her hating and fearing bedtime, and distrusting us. I'm a pretty “attached” parent in other ways – I try to respond quickly to her, carry her often, breastfeed, co-sleep (more about this later), and practice elimination communication. Why would I send her the message during the day that her physical and emotional needs are important, and give her the opposite signal at night?
Jon: The wonderful dad, but a busy one working on a PhD, making me the usual person to put Mari down for naps and for the night.
The goals, from more immediate to less immediate
Teach Mari to not wake up with every sleep cycle
Teach Mari to go to sleep, and back to sleep, without having to nurse or rock until she's totally asleep
Get Mari to take longer naps, so she naps 3-4 hours a day
Teach Mari to sleep at least five hours at a stretch, once a night
Teach Mari to go to sleep without having to be snuggled up to Mum or Dad
Teach Mari to fall asleep in her crib and stay asleep there until Mum is ready for bed
Teach Mari to go to sleep without physical contact from Mom or Dad right until the moment of falling asleep (we will continue to cuddle her to get her sleepy)
Teach Mari to sleep in her crib all night long
Get Mari to sleep eight hours at a stretch
The story today
As of today I've made only a few changes as I prepare Mari's new sleep plan. Today I made sure she had 3 naps, when she started to seem tired, though she fell asleep in the sling when we were out for a walk and steps from home. Then she woke up when we got in the house and got a second wind, and I couldn't get her to sleep until 4:30 – an hour after she first started showing signs of fatigue. She only napped for half an hour that time. I had thought Mari was moving toward just two naps, but actually it seems she still needs three, and she needs them closer together than I'd thought. Yes, she CAN stay up for up to four hours at a stretch, but that's probably twice as long or more than twice as long as she really should stay up – she's really overtired and frenetic at the end.
Tomorrow: the results from my logging of her sleep habits
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