Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Sleep at 5 months

Is definitely NOT what I thought it would be like.

It's funny how you think you have everything planned out as an expecting mother. I was going to have her on a set schedule and she would for sure be sleeping through the night by the time I went back to work. She would never sleep in our bed with us and her naps would be at set times throughout the day. I had it all figured out.

And then she came... And my whole world was turned upside down.

I don't remember much of the first month regarding her sleeping. I was on a nice combination of pain meds plus lack of sleep resulted in me being in robot mode. I do remember a couple times waking up to her crying and I was all tangled up in my wound vac cord and the charger plugged into the wall and crying from frustration at the situation. It sucked!

Things got a little better and she was falling into a groove. We would wake up twice a night to eat. Not too shabby since I was able to sleep in, as long as she allowed, of course. Then maternity leave was over and I dreaded having to function at work on broken sleep. At that time she was getting up around 2 am or so to eat but it would take us quite a while to get her down for the night. We bumped up her bedtime to 7 pm and that helped with the struggle of getting her to go to sleep.

Currently things have totally changed. We put her to bed at 7 and she wakes up between 9 and 10 to eat again, then she wakes up between 2 and 4 and we bring her in bed with us and she sleeps until I wake her up to get ready. If we are really super lucky, all the planets are aligned, and we wish on a shooting star she will sleep from the 9/10 pm feeding all the way through the night.

I'm constantly torn on what is the 'right' thing to do. Should I bring her in bed? Should I let her cry for a few minutes? Should I go in and rock her back to sleep? Should I go ahead and feed her again? If I bring her in bed with us will she be sleeping with us still when she's 5? If I let her cry for a few minutes does she feel abandoned? If I rock her to sleep will she know when she cries I will come pick her up? If I feed her again will she ever sleep through the night? These questions play in my head every night and I don't think there is one right answer. In the end, you do what you have to do, what you think is right, and what works for your family.

1 comment:

  1. We're kind of going through the same thing right now. DS goes to bed around 8. If he takes 7-8 ozs before bed he usually sleeps until 2am (then until around 7am on weekends or until 6am during the week). Anything less and he wakes up around 10-11pm wanting food. Our pedi said its still ok to give him the middle of the night feeding b/c you can't really spoil them yet. With DD we were eventually able to cut out that middle of the night feeding around 6 or 7 months. We did cry it out with her also. It worked well for us and shes a great sleeper now. DS on the other hand won't be as easy. He still sleeps in our room in a rock in play sleeper b/c he and DD have to share a room and she gets mad if hes in "her" room (plus we can't get him to sleep more than a couple of hours in his bed). Its all just a process that will get easier. You'll figure out what works for you and your family. I've found that progression definitely comes with age. I think it will definitely get easier in the next couple of months.

    ReplyDelete

Leave some love! I heart comments!