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.