Sleep Update

Thanks to all of you who posted your encouraging words yesterday. It was one bad day but today's already looking a little better.

Despite my best efforts to keep Micah awake yesterday, this was the scene on the way home from Superstore...

He was so tired that he let me transfer him to his bed (which is unusual). I then quickly made supper - half of me thankful to have the peace and quiet and half of me worrying that I was messing up our chances of an easy bedtime. I let him sleep about half an hour and then woke him up. Thankfully he was still tired enough that he didn't put up much of a fight at bedtime. I'm sure the tylenol we gave him for his cold helped :) He slept 10 hours straight without a peep. Now I just put him down for his nap and he went down very easily. I sang him a song and told him I needed to check on Keziah and that I'd be right back. By the time I came back he was out like a light. So, that's a relief!

Keziah was up a lot last night, but more fussing/talking than crying so I just gave her the soother and let her fuss a bit. I was able to stretch her to 6 hours before feeding her. So, even though I was up with her a lot, it still felt like progress to not be feeding her every 3-4 hours.

After supper last night I headed to the library to check out a couple of parenting books specific to sleeping. I know I run the risk of information-overload and the frustration of sorting through different techniques, but there's a lot of hope that comes from reading other families' success stories and knowing that I can modify anything I read to suit our specific needs.

I came across a book called "Good Night, Sleep Tight" which immediately caught my attention :) From reading it so far it looks like it falls somewhere in between responding to all your babies cries and being very involved in their sleep-training (i.e. the Baby Whisperer) and letting your baby cry it out (i.e. Baby Wise). I do believe crying it out works and this author admits it too, but she knows that many parents can't handle that method and I admit I'm kind of drawn to this "gentler" approach. When I looked up Keziah's age range, the author mentioned that it was actually an ideal time to implement sleep-training because babies that age understand object permanence (just because I can't see Mommy doesn't mean she's not there) and they're also young enough that none of the bad habits are "un-breakable". The book also gave me added assurance that a 4-month-old of a healthy weight should ideally be sleeping 8 hour stretches without eating.

Basically the author says that there will be some crying, but you remain close to your child and try to soothe with your voice, touch, etc. She says soothers are OK, but not if they've become a sleep crutch. Um... too late. So, today when Keziah woke up in the middle of her nap I tried shushing and patting and soothing... I probably should've waited it out a bit longer for her to try to settle herself (up to 20 minutes according to the book), but it was so easy just to plug that soother back in since I knew it would do the trick. I'm sure if we could break the soother habit already she would start sleeping a lot better. An overwhelming thought but I am tempted to push through a few days of crying to see if it might work (easy to say right now when it's not 3 am and I'm not exhausted!!)

So, that's the update. Now I need to tackle some housework before everyone wakes up...