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.
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.
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