Day 21: Some progress, some frustrations

There are definite signs of progress. And yet, last night was a very hard night for me, one of the worst since we started the NCSS.

On the positive side, I only needed to put Mari back to sleep twice last night. She woke up and fussed a bit three other times, but those times, she managed to put herself back to sleep within a few minutes. I nursed her once when she woke up at about 11:30, and again at about 3 AM. So if we count only the night wakings in which I had to intervene, we have gone from 11 on Jan. 18 to two last night. I'm definitely happy about that.

However, the time she woke up at about 3 AM, she would NOT go back to sleep. Maybe I was wrong not to nurse her right away because I wanted her to go at least four hours between night feedings, and it had only been three and a half. I rocked her, but instead of falling back asleep, she kept fussing and seemed full of energy. Even when I gave in and nursed her, it didn't seem to settle her at all. It took until nearly 4:30 AM before she fell back asleep, being rocked in my arms, since by that point I had long since given up on trying to get her to put herself to sleep.

Also, she was up at 6 AM, which is an hour earlier than the earliest time I like her to wake up. Again, she seemed full of piss and vinegar and absolutely would not go back to sleep.

This started a day (today) in which Mari seemingly wanted nothing to do with sleep. She acted like she was hopped up on Red Bull and coffee. She kept waking up very early from her naps and refusing to go back to sleep even when I rocked her and even though I was willing to let her finish her nap in my arms. Her four naps today, which were stretched out artificially as much as I could, totalled only two hours, 15 minutes. Usually she gets three to four hours of total naptime, sometimes more than four.

Yesterday, she napped three hours, 50 minutes in total, which I count as good. In total, she slept 13 hours, 45 minutes yesterday -- still a little on the low side, but closer to the target of 14-15 hours.

Generally, it has seemed to me that more time spent napping resulted in a better night's sleep. But I wonder now if it's possible that napping a little more than usual yesterday resulted in the wakefulness last night and today. I've been logging nap lengths since Feb. 2, so once I have 10 days worth of data, I'll try to look for patterns.

Returning to the results from a day of logging, Mari's sleep stretches have improved a little -- she went for three hours, 8 minutes between wakeful episodes last night. That's counting the night wakings in which I didn't have to intervene. If you count only the times when I did have to go in, she went three hours, 45 minutes between when she first fell asleep and her first night nursing.

However, there has been little progress on getting her to fall asleep without rocking, especially for naps. We're at the same spot as 10 days ago, with me usually having to rock her until she's very nearly asleep. I did try repeatedly to put her down before she started to close her eyes, but she was having none of it. I'll have to keep trying. I know she can do it because she occasionally does it in our bed when we're co-sleeping or co-napping, but she hasn't managed it in her crib yet. This is something we'll work on in the next 10-day plan.