Hi - it's the husband here.
My apologies - this will be a little long.
Firstly, thank you for all your efforts helping us and others. We can't describe how important it is to have this resource.
In reply to your questions... It's dark in her room with two dim night lights. We have no pets. The baby begins to squirm and get nervous when we are about ten feet (3 meters) outside her bedroom. I have experimented with this endlessly so I know this isn't a one-off. If you turn and head back down the hall away from her room she calms down. She will start up again if you turn around and walk towards her room once more. It's weird, to say the least. This is why my wife and I have tried her sleeping in our bed, despite this usually being a big no-no.
Once you get her in the room, its a long night ahead. There is crying, kicking, punching, arching of the back, screaming, moaning, and extreme tension that is actually the reason why she can't fall asleep. My wife rocks and walks her until she's calm and then takes to the glider chair. For me, singing her favourite song while bouncing her and then sitting in the glider for a while calms her down eventually. I sing the same song every night and she knows it - it's my secret weapon so I have to use it at just the right time. Sometimes we need to swap out, as exhaustion takes over and the other person gives it a crack. For each of us, the ritual of calming and then actually getting her to sleep takes between 30 and 90 minutes. We try to put her in the crib while she's still semi-awake, unless its an extreme night like tonight. As my wife mentioned in an earlier post, all this work can get erased if she wakes at the transition and some nights we have to start from scratch. This can result in 3 or 4 total hours of this work before she is officially asleep. Generally, the aforementioned activity occurs between 7pm and 11pm. On average I'd say she now falls asleep at 10:45pm.
She does not have problems with positioning and we stopped swaddling after she was three months (we heard it could stunt growth). It was the only way she would sleep properly after the first month of life, so we used to do it every night. Oddly enough, I had to swaddle her tonight for the first time in ages because she was inconsolable. This was one of the worst nights ever, IMHO.
One of the problems with her taking so long to get to sleep is that over the course of, say, 3 hours, many other concurrent functions are taking place. She's getting hungry, her teeth may start bothering her (resulting in possible medication), she may develop gas from the crying, she might need a change and she may get OT. Some of these issues result in taking a break from the ritual to change her diaper, administer Orajel or Advil, feed her, etc. These breaks only complicate matters and we begin to have simultaneous issues over this expanse of time, adding even further complexity.
In light of this, we are trying to simplify and modularize our baby's issues. If we can tackle one at a time (as we do in the daytime) it will be manageable, but right now bedtime is hell. In the day, naps usually aren't easy but sometimes are achieved relatively painlessly (about 50% the crying is less than 10 minutes). They are, however, too short unless we use props (i.e. car). At night, all of her issues are occurring at once and everything is confused. I have read all the previous posts and wanted to emphasize that her OTness and lack of EASY rhythm is due to the fact that we cannot just put her down at S time. Sometimes putting her down takes longer than the S itself! This throws everything off. My feeling (and I think my wife agrees) is that we need to fix the night issues, then the day naps, and things will begin to improve. But the heart of the matter is
getting her to sleep. This is the gist of the story. We have parallel issues with the diarrhea and teeth but this "fear" of going to bed is the most detrimental - not to mention possibly dangerous to her development. I have not heard of a child this age needing only 7-8 hours of sleep every night, and then some days not even napping at all.
My wife and I are borderline phobic of putting her to bed, since every night without fail we undergo this trauma. Life isn't fun right now and it will get better, but we need help. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Sleepless in Canada
