Dear Forumites,
This is our family's first post to the forum. If there are etiquette issues with this post, please pardon our ignorance. It will be a lengthy post, but we want to make sure that the full
story is told. We're really struggling with sleep issues, and any help that you're able to offer would be sincerely, sincerely appreciated.
My wife and I had our first child, a little daughter in January of 2014, so she just had her first birthday. The time has flown!
When our daughter, Mary, was a newborn, we intended to exclusively breastfeed. Within the first week of her life, she showed a distinct preference for nursing lying down. We consulted
with several different IBCLCs about her refusal to nurse in any other position, but were largely unsuccessful in transitioning her to a wider variety of nursing positions. She would
scream and scream when she was offered the breast in any position other than side-lying.
There was one night when she was very young when she would not calm down, no matter what we did. We called our doula/IBCLC, and she suggested that dad (I) hold her in my arms while
bouncing on an exercise/yoga ball. This worked like a dream, and was basically a panacea for her whenever she got upset. This complicated the bedtime routine, however, in that she
insisted on being bounced to sleep on the ball. I recognize that giving in to the demands of someone who is less than 30 days old is basically the definition of "accidental parenting,"
but we were feeling desperate at the time and...it turned into a real habit.
What developed was Mary refusing to nurse unless she was already asleep before she began nursing. It worked like this:
1) Mary is hungry.
2) Mom or Dad bounces her to sleep on the exercise ball.
3) M/D carefully transfers to Mom and Dad's bed, where Mom will nurse her lying down.
4) Mary wakes up (barely) and nurses herself to sleep.
5) Mary sleeps for a long or short time after nursing.
As you can imagine, she wasn't always hungry at the same time that she was sleepy, so she didn't eat that much during the day. We were concerned about her weight, so she started sleeping
with Mom at night so that she could wake up and nurse as much as she needed to. Dad slept on the couch for 10 months.
This was a rough schedule, and we were looking for a solution. Here is when The Baby Whisperer came into our lives!
When Mary was 10 months old, we transitioned her to her own crib for all naps and nighttime, using Baby Whisperer methods. We never let her "controlled cry" / CIO before or after starting
to use BW techniques.
She was taking two naps (morning and afternoon) when we started using BW methods, but this was causing her problems, too, in that she would frequently fight us tooth and nail when it was
time for the afternoon nap, and then wind up sleeping later in the afternoon than she really ought to, thus affecting her bedtime. She would frequently not fall asleep for the night until
9:00pm or even later, which made things difficult for Mom and Dad, because she was routinely waking before 7:00am, complete with several wake-ups in the night to nurse.
Just before she turned 1, we transitioned her to one nap, and this has really helped with the amount of time that she was asleep during nighttime hours. She now is in her crib, more-or-
less, from 7:30pm until 7:30am. Her single nap is usually at around 12:00pm, and lasts anywhere from 90-150 mins. We're definitely shooting for 2 to 2.5 hours for this single nap, but
she often is waking earlier than we (or she!!) would like. This results in her yawning tiredly while fighting sleep.
We use PU/PD and "shush-pat" with her with a reasonable amount of success, but we really feel like it SHOULD be going better than it is. She fights us at almost every naptime/bedtime. She
pretty much never falls asleep without being "shush-patted," and almost never falls asleep without us in the room. We're hesitant to leave the room before she falls asleep, but have tried
it in the past with mixed results.
She's waking at night to nurse AT LEAST 3 times and probably averages more like 5 times, all the way up to 6-7 times waking up during the night. She doesn't always go right back to sleep,
either. Since it hasn't been too long since we transitioned her to a single nap, we haven't tried to night-wean her yet. It is possible that that will help.
Any ideas? Any thoughts? Anyone have a baby like this? We're a little lost about what to do, and would truly appreciate recommendations/advice/tips. We are trying to recover from a lot of accidental parenting!
