Where did my baby go?

[nursekat]

OK, HELP!!!!!   

The last two nights have been awful.  She wakes pretty much ever 15-20mins (or maybe doesn't ever quite fall asleep?) until 1am!  Then she wakes every hour until the morning!  We had an awful day yesterday, totally off her routine because she was so irritable and cranky.  It's not like her - she usually does ok during the day even if she had a bad night.  I'm dreading today (it's 8am here, time to wake).

I can't feel any teeth coming in, and she doesn't have any cold symptoms...what's going on?    

I know I need to let go of the fact that she used to sleep 12 hrs, but I'm tired.  I don't handle little sleep at ALL.   

[nursekat]

Oh I'm sooo thankful you're here! 

Prop:  Yes, the paci is going.  Soon.  Some of her wakings are definitely that - she fusses with her mouth wide open and then goes right back down as soon as I pop it in.  However, not all of her wakings are that - often I go in there and it's already in (I know, I know...it's going don't worry! , and I just need to pat her a bit and she goes back down.

Feeds:  I fed her at 10pm, she screamed for 5mins when I first offered the breast, then I rocked her until she calmed down and she fed fine.  Took me until 11pm to get her back down, though.  Fed her again at 12:30am, she screamed when I changed her diaper, but then went down and I think that's what got her "switched" to every hour instead of every 20mins.

She is not acting in pain, I think.  She is rather easy to put back to sleep with a shh/pat.  Hmmm...has she turned my presence into a prop?  Ah but an ear infection I had not thought of.  She was a little warm to me yesterday but not enough to take a temp.  I will look at her today more closely.  She also has a diaper rash that looks more like yeast than a diaper rash...but I have not known it to bug babies (I was a pedi nurse, btw).

Wakey time...

[nursekat]

Ok, I've just been working up the nerve to ditch the paci, and now that she's not sleeping well I have been putting it off more since it "helps."  We'll start today.

are there posts to read about indep sleep?

What do you think about her taking naps beautifully, though?  Why is she doing naps ok but not nights?

[Colin Macs Mom]

My DS always napped like a champ as well, but nights were hell on earth. Never really did figure it out for sure.    Is your DD spirited? That's been a huge part of our sleep challenges with Colin. He's always got something else to do, you know? I always suspected that nights were just too long for him to be stuck in the boring crib supposed to be sleeping - booooring. 

If you want to read more about independent sleep, then check out the FAQ sections of the sleep boards. There's TONS of stuff there. I would start with the sleep interview with Tracy.

[nursekat]

Yes, Jessica, she is a spirited one...although she has been on BW since she was 3 weeks...so often she is able to disguise her spiritedness and play it off like she's a textbook.  LOL!

We're on nap one with no paci.  I did read the sleep interview but it was quite a while back and was for other reasons...I'll head there again.

Thanks, ladies.  I need to chat with you at 12am when I'm thinking to myself, "Why do I listen to that stuff?  I want to pick her up and rock her to sleep!!"  LOL!  Although she's spirited enough that that usually doesn't work, she wakes as soon as I move.  So I guess that's a good thing for me, she's keeping me from AP! 

[nursekat]

Oh yeah I forgot my other question (soo tired) - she is really struggling in the evening on the 4hr easy - too much A time-to-catnap ratio.  I tweaked her routine one day for a mommy's group and it looked like this:

A 7:00
S 8:00
A 9:00
S 11:00
A 1:00
S 3:00
A 5:00
catnap somewhere in the middle
bedtime @ 7:30

Basically she just got an extra nap in the am - she is so tired in the morning, and this way it also shortened her evening awake times.  Just wanting to know what you think.

And...if you think that is not advisable, what about moving her bedtime up an hour so her daytime consists of 11hrs?

[nursekat]

Gotcha.  Thanks stacy.  This is hard work.   

If you wanna keep an eye on how I'm doing:  https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=73219.0;topicseen

[nursekat]

Ok, so on day 6 of paci weaning and I'M having some regression issues!  LOL! 

She's waking 3-4 times a night, needing to eat at about 2 of those.  Tracy suggests giving the paci to get over night feeds, but what do you do when weaning?  I read the post about feeding less during the night feeds, and she'll take more in the day, hopefully.  I'm just tired, and at a big low point.    I really was spoiled with those 12hr nights she used to do!!