Sleepy

I am sleepy. Beyond sleepy. Exhausted. Last night Hailey stayed up with Audreyanna until about 1:30 so that I could get some sleep so today I can actually put words together to form a sentence.I have had lots of babies, some great sleepers and some not so great sleepers. But my days are so full of the needs and activities of the rest of the family that they would exhaust me even with a good nights sleep, and when sleep comes in fits and spurts it doesn't take long to slip below the waves.

Cry it out is not my thing, I just don't have the stomach for it. So I got this book from the library to see what I could see. I was so giddy when I picked it up that I thought if it worked I would kiss it and hug it and dance it around the room. I might even buy my own copy and build a little shadow box to display it over the fireplace!

So, the book basically advocates gradually changing your babies habits and routines. Up until the last couple of babies, my kids were always on somewhat of a schedule. Not full blown bedtime routines, but the pretty much had a bedtime, and a naptime and they happened at pretty much the same time every day. Through the fog of my rose colored glasses it seemed like they were better sleepers. My last 3 have NOT been good sleepers. And they have not really had sleep time schedules. Hmmm. I know it sounds obvious, but you have to coming at it hiking uphill through a jungle of exhaustion where people keep grabbing your legs. It's harder to see.

So, Pantley says her suggestions could take some time to really see results. I really want to put her to be tonight and wake up in the morning shocked that she's still sleeping, but we're going to give it a go. I had already been trying to teach her that she doesn't actually have to have my breast in her mouth all night long to sleep. But I need to be more consistent. I have got her to the point where I can sometimes exract myself from her mouth and she will complain a little and go back to sleep. But only as long as I stay on my side facing her. If I try to move to my back or put my back toward her, her super spidey senses kick in and she is awake and crying.

So, we are going to work on real nap times. In her own bed. Hopefully working up to 2 naps about 1.5 - 2 hours each, in her bed. Rather than 3 - 4 naps of 15 - 20 min each in our arms. And I hope to get my response time during the night to times when she is actually hungry and she will learn to just fall back to sleep when she wakes as a regular part of the infant sleep cycle.

We'll see. Right now she is up every hour to hour and a half and she wants attention and comfort nursing. I would also like her to start the night in her co-sleeper at least until the first nursing. Which will hopefully be after several hours of sleep.

I'm going to use the heat pad to warm her bed before putting her in it. The book is really a lot of common sense solutions, but it was helpful to read it. I think I got a little lazy with my little ones. I just sort of fit them around everything that was going on with the biggers, instead of really working to develop the habits that would help the whole family function better.

So, here we go!