Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Hitting the Rest Button

We've been having some sleep issues here in the House of Scarlet. Specifically, a very tiny someone decides not to sleep and it makes the big someones not sleep either. She was sleeping through the night for the three weeks before Christmas, but then the holidays, lots of travel, lots of visitors, the funeral, and everything else hit and it decimated her ability to sleep through the night.

Do you KNOW what six months of not sleeping through the night will do to a person? Let's just say that if you haven't entered parenthood, or you have/had one of those Magic Babies that hit three/four/five months and decided to sleep through the night, I can tell you that there is a reason sleep deprivation is used as a torture device.

And the hectic schedule that has been making her not sleep is the same one that has been making us too distracted to really look into sleep training. And since she slept through the night pretty easily before, I suspect that if we can just keep our asses in place and let her get back on schedule and go to bed early, then it'll all work out.

So I read up on a few sleep things today, but mostly I'm implementing a two week house arrest for the sake of the little one. Not too much leaving the house during the day so as to get a better nap routine going, and no going anywhere at night so she can go down at 6pm (which sounds too early unless you read up on sleep stuff. I won't bore you here). Last night her 2am wake up lasted so long (and so loudly) that B literally got out of bed (while I was trying to calm her down in the other room), set up the ironing board, and ironed all of his work clothes for the morning. Let me just tell you that you have to be pretty awake and feel pretty defeated to straight up turn on the light, get the ironing stuff, and start doing your chores.

We also stopped all solid food except her rice cereal. It roughly coordinated with the sleep problems and it was clearly not sitting as easily with her stomach as just the cereal, so we're going back to square 1 as far as that's concerned also.

I'm sure this won't be the last time that we accidentally make things harder on ourselves by not paying enough attention to what she needs. Live and learn!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow I don't envy you...but figure it out quickly so that when I need this problem-solving about sleep patterns for a little one, you'll be able to fix mine:)

feather nester said...

Okay, I'm going to say this once to you, and you can either listen to me, or ignore me, and it is TRULY FINE either way, but keep it in the back of your head because it is the best piece of advice I can give you when you're ready to hear it:

Every single person I know who wasn't still experiencing these kinds of sleep problems after the first birthday, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, did the Ferber method. Ferberizing can be heart-breaking, but it's over quickly, and it works. If you want to know more, let me know. If you want to tell me to kiss it, rock on, sister. Do what's best for you and yours, but that's my two cents. xoxo

Strongmama said...

Gotta agree with feathernester, yet somehow I am not taking my own advice yet as our little miss has been waking up once a night since Christmas too. I've been making excuses for quite a while, but I need to stop doing that. With two, it's easier to just do what you have to do to stop the crying, but I'm going to have to hope J doesn't wake up. I think keeping your schedule simplified over the next few weeks will help out a lot as you give her lots of chances to help her day sleep which will help her night sleep. Keep a log of her awake and asleep times to help you too.I really hope things get better soon. Know you're not alone if you need some help! And look on the bright side of the early bedtime-- wine earlier in the evening!

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