Day 19: So frustrated!

I don't know if it's our two-day trip still messing things up, but what little predictability Mari ever had has gone out the window. She woke up an hour later than usual and only had a one-hour nap in the morning (usually that's the longest nap; I aim for an hour and a half). I initially thought the early-afternoon nap was a triumph, because for once I managed to get her to fall asleep in her crib without first rocking her to the eyes-closed-and-nearly-asleep stage. But then she woke up after only a half hour and kept waking up still cranky. I ended up holding her for most of the one hour, 45 minute nap.

We went for a walk and came home shortly before 5 PM (all her usual naptimes were shifted forward today). I started her naptime routine immediately. But she would just NOT fall asleep, no matter what I did. She didn't want to be rocked. She didn't want to be put down. Nursing wouldn't calm her down. Trying to co-nap didn't work. Finally in desperation I asked Jon to take over and put her down for real, not just for a nap, since it was well after 6 PM by this point.

Jon took her and I went downstairs to get something to eat. After awhile, I heard her crying and I remembered I'd left something I needed in her room. So I very quickly finished my meal (I had just a few bites left) and ran upstairs to get it, thinking I should enter her room before she fell asleep. But by the time I opened the door, she was already asleep in Jon's arms. When I went in, it woke her up. And she screamed. Jon, of course, was furious. I felt like dirt.

Now she's been waking up every half-hour or so again. I know she got screwed up by missing her late-afternoon nap, but I don't know what I could have done to prevent that. We were home in plenty of time to get her asleep, and she didn't seem overtired. So why wouldn't she fall asleep? She was clearly tired.

Sigh... I'm so tired of this. I want her to sleep, and stay asleep!

Day 18: Setbacks

Mari had a great night of sleep Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, her best since we started the No-Cry Sleep Solution. She did indeed end up sleeping on her belly, at first because she rolled onto it and after that because I actually put her down on her belly, as an experiment. I woke her up around midnight to give her a dream feed just before I went to bed, and she woke up around 4 a.m. to feed as well. That was it. She spent the whole night in her crib, for the first time. I thought I was dreaming when I woke up alone in bed.

Then, the next day, her routine got totally disrupted by our trip out of town to see Jon's dad. She had four naps on Wednesday, but despite my best efforts, they were all really short. Further, because we arrived quite late, she didn't get to bed until 9:15. She was clearly overtired and fussy when she went to bed and although I tried again to get her to sleep on her belly, she still woke up constantly. The next day, after Jon did some work for his father's small business, we returned home. She napped a little better that day, but again, we got home late, and again, she didn't get to bed until after 9 PM, and again, she had a rough night.

Today, we're back home and I was quite strict about getting Mari down for her naps on schedule, but she still didn't sleep well. All three of her naps were short and would have been shorter if I hadn't ended up holding her for most of them because she wouldn't stay asleep otherwise. At night, even though we were slightly ahead of her official schedule, she was overtired because she hadn't napped well, and I really couldn't get her to bed any sooner than I did because I was starving and had to have a proper dinner. I had the lights out by 7:30, but it took her until 8:15 to fall asleep, and she's woken up plenty since then. I feel like much of the work I've done over the past 18 days has come to naught. Damn.

Day 15: Belly flop

Now that Mari is fairly good at rolling over, she almost always rolls onto her side when I put her down on her back, and a few times she's rolled onto her belly. I know the sages say not to let babies sleep on their bellies, but I've let her stay there, since I figure if she's big enough to put herself on her belly she's big enough to survive it. I do make sure there are no obvious suffocation hazards around. No bumper, no soft toys except her lovey, which is quite thin, no pillow, no blankets.

I'm more torn on whether to actively encourage belly sleeping. Mari has been inconsistent in her reactions to belly sleeping. The first time I tried it, Mari had by far her longest sleep stretch EVER -- 7 hours, 15 minutes. I had to go in to check if she was dead. Since then, though, results vary dramatically. Sometimes she has a good solid sleep. Other times she's up within minutes, and seems more upset than usual. I think this is another thing I'll have to keep track of to see if it really does produce an improvement in her sleep, at least most of the time.

Day 14: Why won't she stay asleep???

OK, it's been one of those nights. And for no reason that's obvious to me. Mari had an average amount of total naptime, though it's true that the first was long and the next two short. She had an average amount of stimulation for the day. It took her longer than usual to fall asleep, but the first couple of hours of sleep were fine. Since then, she's been waking up what seems like every 10 minutes.

Maybe what I need is more data. I know the NCSS cautions against logging too often, because patience is necessary. But part of me wonders if there's an optimal amount of naptime, a perfect bedtime, that I'm not consistently hitting on. So starting tomorrow I'll try to keep better track of the amount of naptime, the bedtime and the number of night wakings. Maybe there's another variable, but I'll start with those.

Day 13: Sleepy baby

Not much new to say today, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.