I think I can tentatively say MARI HAS STARTED SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT! I'm so happy!
Last night Mari slept for 11 hours, from about 8 p.m. to 7 a.m., without a single peep. In her crib, in her room. Without sleeping on her tummy. Without a dream feed. And she woke up happy and well-rested, not obviously starving, though with a good appetite once I did feed her. I'm so conditioned to waking up at night that I woke up at about 3:30 a.m., boobs sore and swollen, but even so, I had the best night's sleep I've had since before Mari was born.
The three nights prior too, she technically slept through the night, if one defines "through the night" as five hours. I don't know yet what tonight will hold, but as I write this it's nearly midnight and Mari has yet to utter a peep, so I'm optimistic.
What's more, she has put herself to sleep without me in the room for the last three nights running. I've still been doing her bedtime routine and getting her good and sleepy, but then I've put her in the crib, stayed with her for another couple of minutes, kissed her goodnight and left. Tonight she "talked" a little after I left, but only for a minute or two. Then, blessed silence.
I know not to count on a good night every night, and I know there may be further sleep regressions ahead, but I think both of us have finally learned she is capable of putting herself to sleep and back to sleep, and staying asleep all night or at least most of the night. It feels like a miracle.
Now, if only her napping habits would improve. Today was actually a particularly bad day for naps. She only had a 45-minute nap in the morning and a 30-minute nap in the early afternoon. Her late-afternoon nap totaled two hours but she woke up in the middle and the only way I could get her back down was to nurse her back to sleep, which I really don't like doing. What's more, I or Jon had to stay with her for all her naps, as we've been doing pretty much all her life with rare exceptions, and even so we weren't always able to keep her asleep or get her back to sleep.
It's not that Mari doesn't need to nap as much anymore, because she was obviously overtired and cranky most of the day today, going from laughter to tears like a bipolar mosquito on a roller coaster. Maybe tonight's sleep was saved by her last, lengthier nap, but the day was hard on me because she spent a lot of time screaming shrilly.
I've now read over the No-Cry Nap Solution and will log the day tomorrow and try to create a plan. I must say, I've already started trying to use Elizabeth Pantley's two main suggestions to get a short napper to nap longer and they haven't been working. But maybe things will improve when I've put together an integrated plan to improve her napping.
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Good work, guys! It does take longer than the plans that involve crying, but you were able to do something that felt more comfortable for you, so that's great. I knew she'd become more confident putting herself back to sleep. I'm not sure what to suggest about the naps. I know you already do a naptime routine. Isaac usually naps for a while, unless his brother wakes him up, so my only suggestion would be to see if there's a particular noise that wakes her (obviously you don't want to make *no* noise at all). But if she can put herself back to sleep at night, she can do it during the day too -- she just needs to get used to doing it in the different situation.
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited for you! We've got NCSS out of the library, and are gradually introducing some of the ideas. You and Mari give me hope!
ReplyDeleteHmm, Mari is such a light sleeper *anything* can wake her up. The rustle of a page turning, the squeak of a floorboard, water running in the other room...
ReplyDeleteGood luck, Nicole and Jake! Let me know how it goes!
ReplyDeleteIt totally isn't practical to have no noise at all, but for some reason the same type of noise bothers Isaac less when he's settling down at night than it bothers him during naptime. I forget if you use a white noise machine? We do that. Also, we have blackout curtains, though Isaac can sleep without them. Hard to say, though, if it's environmental factors that are waking her up during the day -- might be, since she is super-sensitive to changes in her environment.
ReplyDeleteWe have a white noise machine but I think we really need blackout curtains. I went looking the other day but the store I went to didn't have them. Sigh...
ReplyDeleteI don't know either if it's environmental factors waking her up. It seems like sometimes she just suddenly wakes herself up. Probably it's her sleep cycles getting shallow. She's so unpredictable.
We got blackout curtains at Target. The Pottery Barn Baby catalog has them too (but expensive), as does onestepahead.com. I don't know what shipping would be like to get to you, though. I really think that she will find a way to get through those shallow points in her sleep cycle eventually; she seems to be responding well to getting more sleep.
ReplyDeleteIsaac woke up at 5:15 a.m. today screaming, and wouldn't go back to sleep. He cried until 8:45 a.m., and then I took the kids to Target and on the way home he fell asleep. This is not at all his usual thing. I wanted to take Caleb to run around at the sports center, but there's no way to do that now. It's really hard when they don't stay on their schedule.
Yeah, yesterday Mari hardly napped at all. Today she's been a dream. Two-hour nap in the morning, and her second nap has been nearly two hours too so far. What an unpredictable baby. Sometimes when she has good days I wonder if she's starting to transition to two naps, though I suspect even if that's the case the full transition won't be made for quite awhile yet. Seems like she does best when she has a long nap in the morning and two shorter ones in the afternoon, or a short one and a medium-length one.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to hear Isaac had such a rough day. Hope they get back on track tomorrow!
Incidentally, I really wish they had Target in Canada.
The cashiers at our Target know us by name! It's pretty scary.
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