I usually try to save this kind of introspection for my journal, but today is an exception for me. Leah has never been a good sleeper, so I won't say that I'm desperate, but I'm getting there. At 10 months, she is old enough to make it through the night without nursing and this doesn't seem to bother her. But she still wakes up in the middle of the night and cries and cries and cries until we turn on the lights and then she stops and smiles at us. This can go on for hours- last night was 1:00 to 4:30. Every night we try to figure out what we can do that we haven't done before- catching her before she gets really worked up, leaving her even if she's really worked up, Tylenol, a night light, a drink of water, lullabies, putting her in bed with us, putting her to bed earlier, keeping her up later... and nothing seems to be the magic ticket. Crying it out doesn't work for Leah, and I'm pretty sure our neighbors are about to sue.
I know (I hope!) that there are other moms out there that have been though the same thing. If so, let me know what worked for you. Hopefully I'll have good news soon!
And to brighten things up, here is a picture of Leah helping me clean out the fridge yesterday.
5 comments:
I really hesitated leaving a comment on this post because I don't have any advice on the subject (and I don't want you to hate me). But, I am sorry that you are going through this. I'm sure it is very trying, and difficult, and tireing!
I wish I had magical advice that would help Leah sleep through the night, but I don't:( But, what I do have is my neighborly-ness (is that a word? well, it is now!). PLEASE, if you are exhausted and need a nap or some sort of relief during the day let me know and I will be there in a flash! Leah is welcome here anytime, and so are you. Don't be afraid to ask,ok?
We love you guys. Hang in there:)
I don't know what we would do without a pacifier. I know some babies don't like them. That's what we did when Tyson would wake up at 4, 5, 6 in the morning. It was every hour for awhile. Ridiculous! But the pacifier worked for him; sometimes I wished he would just use his thumb!
Have you read BabyWise? It has some great information about helping your baby learn to sleep. We didn't do everything the book said, but what we did helped a lot.
Good luck! I know it's 10 times more stressful thinking you're waking up your neighbors.
No promises that I'll be able to help, but two questions since every situation is unique. Does she go to sleep in her bed, by herself at night? And how long are her naps during the day? Sadie did the same thing and we were able to break her of it (painfully) but I wonder how similar they are.
Hmmm, the only thing I can suggest (that worked for me as a nanny, aside from letting them cry it out, which you've already tried) is to not turn on lights or play when you go in to get her. Keep it dark and don't make too much eye contact while you are lulling her back to sleep. She might start to understand that it's not play time at night...or she might not :) But it's worth a try
A combination of Baby Whisperer and Baby Wise was the life saver for us. When we were breaking Suede of it, we let her cry for at most 45 min., went in and tried to comfort her as well as we could, then let her cry some more. It would stretch out her waking time and eventually she started sleeping through the night. Not sure if Leah is the same. They are all different, but I love Baby Whisperer and I found lots of points in Baby Wise helpful.
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