Hello everyone,
First of all I introduce myself. I am Paoletta, I am Italian -so apologies for any mistakes!- mum of a 7 1/2 months old LO. I have spent the last months being what now I believe the worst (accidental) parent ever!
Well, useless to say, we have sleeping problems and have been having them since birth. First 40 days of her life, LO would only scream and cry, sleeping no more than 4-5hrs out of 24, and no one knew why! We would rock her to sleep even for more than an hour but she would sleep! ever! It's been the hardest time in my life! We thought I didn't have much milk, or colics, or reflux, but in the end we could not figure it out and by the end of these 40 days things slowly improved by themselves. I went on bf, she started sleeping a bit more, and never had the time nor fancy any reading about babies! Until 20 days ago, when I bought THE book. I am desperately in need of a good night of sleep, without waking every 20, 30 or 60 min!
This was the background, apologies in advance for writing so much!
I now believe my LO is a spirited baby and this is probably why she doesn't (or better didn't) show any sign of tiredness, she can play all day long if you don't force her to sleep!
At the moment our typical day is:
7.30 wakes up
8.30 breakfast
9.40 naps till 10.20 (sometimes 11.00)
12.00 lunch
12.30 naps till 13.50 (sometimes 13.10)
16.00 naps till 17.15 (sometimes 16.50)
17.15 snack
19.40 dinner
21.30 bedtime
wakes several times
6.30 nurses and falls asleep till 7.30 or 8.00 or 8.30
These times can vary a lot from one day to another because her naps are not always the same, they can be 30, 45, 60 or 80 min tops. So the other events change accordingly. But she always sleeps 3 times a day since 2 months and is roughly up for 2hrs in between naps.
Up until last Sunday she would wake a countless number of times during the night, and always after 40 min of getting asleep for the first time, as if it was a nap. And EVERY time I would pick her up and bf her back to sleep, just because it required less time than anything else and we are exhausted. It all started when she was born, as she would wake up for feeding during the night and it went on and on without us realising that she couldn't possibly be hungry all these times at a older age.
Anyway, to address the sleeping problems we started pu/pd last sunday morning. First time we gave up, too much crying screaming etc and I slept her in the usual way (singing and walking with her in my arms). Second nap, it took almost an hour! Then it went gradually better but it has never been less than 17min. And she always cry. Only once she did not cry but only moaned a lot but eventually settled. My question is: what are we still doing wrong? I will tell you how we actually do pu/pd (I do it during nap times and my husband during the night so we avoid LO looking for my breast as she was used to):
When I think she is tired because she rubs her eyes or ears or hair, we say goodnight to toys, close the window, walk a bit in the darkened room, then I pd and she either starts playing or crying. If she plays she doesn't stop by herself, never. So I pu anyway and she relaxes a bit, then pd. And again she can play or cry. Until she eventually only cries. So I pu, calm her, pd, she cries again and so on until she starts to be drowsy when still in my arms, I pd and she eventually only moans without crying and then fall asleep.
(when we pd, we keep a hand on her back and say over and over the same sentences).
Results so far: during the day, she naps for longer usually. Before pu/pd she would only sleep for 30 to 45 min, whereas now she can sleep up to 80min; so that's progress for us! During the night instead, she wakes up first time after 1.5 or 2 or 3 or 4 hours (once) and then every 1 or 1.5 or 2 hrs. She was even awake for an entire hour last night, from 2 to 3am. It usually takes 5-15min for her to go back to sleep. It is always better than before, but still so very far from ideal or acceptable!
However, there is no way I can leave the room before she is asleep, and I can't imagine eventually going into her room, putting her down, leaving the room and finding her asleep by herself. I can't see how this method would lead to this result at the moment. Could you please help me out? I beg you...
Thanks to everyone!
Paoletta
