First, thank you for lots of words of wisdom.
In response to kelly, in the past i have only been sitting with her during wind up time for about 5 minutes, at which point she is still looking around the room, but calm and sometimes sucking her paci. Then i place her in the crib, and if it is nap time she goes down in 10-45 minutes. in that time she usualy throws her legs up and down, wiggles her head around, closes and opens her eyes, squeezes them shut tightly and then pops them open, someties has a few fussy cries for maybe 5-10 minutes, sometimes none... things like that (which all tell me she is trying to calm herself and relax). If it is bed time she goes through fussy cries, which then escilate into incredbly loud cries. Tonight we tried pu/pd for 1.5 hrs, with no sucess, so she ate again (at about 9:30 which sometimes is bedtime feeding, and other times is just followed by a cat nap. She is usualy in bed at the lastest 11pm). Then we started over, with a nice wind down, sitting calmly, and then going into the crib. At this point she stayed in the crib for about 10 minutes before her fusses turned into serious cries (she got very red, sweaty, and trembled). We started pu/pd again with no results after another 30 minutes. At that point i left the room while my husband stayed with her, just holding her. I read your response that we can hold her in our arms until she is VERY relaxed, perhaps ever almost asleep, but still with her eyes open??? Just wanted to be sure that this is what you are saying. Even if it exceeds 5 minutes, during wind down time i can hold her upright, pat/shhing, until she is drowsy and relaxed, and then place her in her crib? I went and told my husband this, and he left the room and is holding her, with a soother, but he is holding her horizontal. It has taken about another 20 minutes for her to calm down since leaving the room. he just put her in the crib.
I am so confused right now because it seems that holding her until she is almost asleep is teaching her to sleep in our arms, but i don't feel comfortable doing pu/pd when she gets so worked up that she is gasping for air, trembling and sweating. I know this takes lots of hard work, and lots of crying, but i will honestly say that if my husband were not here doing this i would have given up on trying this at bed time (again, naps are easy.. she is a little weirdo
sooo, here is her routine, give or take a little with activity times and length of time to fall asleep
Oh yeah, she is breast fed:
7 eat
7:45 done: activity (activities through out the day include:lying on floor looking around or lying in crib under mobile or sitting in a play seat thing that doesn't bounce or lying on lap interacting with mom and dad)
8:00 first yawn
8:45-asleep (usualy wakes up after half an hour, but i have succesfully been extending her naps!)
10 eats
10:45 done: activity
11:15 yawn.. time for wind down
12:00 asleep
1 eats
1:45 activity (i sometimes go for a walk at this time; she will then sleep in her stoller during this nap, but she is not dependant upon it)
2:00-15 yawns... off to nap time
3:00 asleep
4:00 eats
4:45 activity
5:15 cat nap time (sometimes she does not actualy get to sleep by the next feed)
6: Eat (still cluster feeding because my milk supply is just enough if i allow her to eat every 2 hours at night)
6:45 bath time
7:00 nap
8: eats
8:45 straight to bed (if she falls asleep at this time she usualy wakes up again at about 9:30/10, at which point i feed her again in place of a dream fed. There have been maybe a dozen times when she has stayed alseep for the night, and then i pump to dream feed her)
sometimes....
10 eats
10:30 to bed (she is usualy asleep by 11 for the night)
she only wakes up once during the night, after about 4-5 hrs
I do not like her bed time but i have not been able to get it to happen much ealier, so i do indeed think she must be overtired in the night and thus has such trouble calming down. any bed time thought, or other thoughts from the schedule.
thanks
