No, we’re not doing laundry upstairs. That’s just my baby in the dryer.
31st March 2009
We are (still) battling some sleep…issues with Miss Alice.
When what we now know was the milk allergy started, Alice started rubbing her eyes. This started to keep her awake, so Jen O. lent us her Miracle Blanket.
And lemme tell you…that thing IS a miracle. Even at 15 weeks, Alice loved being in it, and it kept her hands out of her eyes.
(Have you seen one? It’s stretchy jersey, and has a pocket for
the legs and wraps for the arms, torso and belly. It like a gentle straight jacket for babies. I wish I’d had it from Alice’s birth, and will recommend it to all new moms now.)
The past few weeks, however, she’s started to resist being bound up. Actually, she’s an angry, beliggerant hornet.
And after months of rocking and walking and pacing, falling asleep standing up, frustration and tiredness, we had to do something. Waiting until six months to sleep train our feisty girl, as we all along planned, seemed like an eternity away. And we knew it’s just get harder the longer we waited.
We knew we’d have to go all out: Get rid of the swaddle, and help her learn how to soothe herself to sleep. One couldn’t be done without the other, you see.
So Monday night — after attempts on the weekend to rock her to sleep unswaddled ended with DEMON BABY — we decided to do it. No swaddle. No rocking.
And then we didn’t sleep from 1 a.m. – well, NOW, essentially.
However.
After hours of crying and anger today, she just went into her bed wide awake, futzed for 20 minutes, and is now asleep.
Sweet, glorious silence. We may actually survive this.
Special kudos to my genius husband, who found a recording of a dryer online, repeated it for an hour, and burned it onto a CD — instant white noise in the nursery! And thanks to all of you for inspiring it with your white noise suggestions.
Possibly related posts:
oh I remember those days. I remember what made it worse was when my husband worked the night shift so I was stuck there all by myself trying to get Caity to sleep.
I feel your pain Carly, wish I could help.
That picture is priceless!!!!
sorry you are having such a hard time getting Alice to soothe herself… Is she still in her bassinet? I just see the picture of her in there… Maybe if she is still in there, she is too confined… I know Carmen slept better once she was in the crib…
No, that photo is from February! She’s been in her crib for weeks now…
Last night she stayed asleep until midnight, fed, then put herself back to sleep with little fussing and woke up at 6:30. That’s am AMAZING improvement from the night before!
Isn’t it nice when they finally start to figure out the sleep thing? Congrats on making progress. And thanks for the tip re: the miracle blanket – I’ve been recommending swaddling to a friend that is about to pop, I’ll let her know about this!
Carly, a question about those blankets. How safe are they? There’s the big campaign on now in hospitals called “Back to Sleep” to get Mothers to put their infants on their backs to help prevent SIDS, however one of the other key points is to LOOSELY cover your child and not higher than their chest. I understand the swaddling technique but I’d be more concerned with their safety than with me getting sleep. Sorry, it just seems like it goes against what the medical group is saying … just wondering…. thanks
Kelly, that’s actually one of the benefits of the Miracle Blanket — Babies are wrapped tight in it (arms in the tabs secured underneath them, legs in the pocket, then a bit swath wrapped around them) so they can’t get out of it and have the blanket free in bed, or flip over.
We also put Alice in a sleep sack (a loose, zippered sleeping bag-like thing that has their arms out) as well as the MB when it was so chilly this winter — lessening even more her getting free or pieces of the blanket out.
The package recommends using it only until 14 weeks, but we did it longer because of the eye rubbing.
Now that she’s out of it, we just have her in the sleep sack — a big recommendation, as then there is absolutely no blanket in bed with her at all.
Alice is also always on her back when we put her to bed. She’s only rolled on her belly once (Monday night when she was ANGRY) and we could tell right away by her muffled cries; her arms we free, though.
Hope that helps!
We have a sleep sack too (actually several) and still use one with Alex, who turned 2 in February. We tried blankets with him awhile ago but it made me too nervous. Twice when I tried them he ended up wrapped up in them – around his head so we ended that quickly.
yup, thanks
I had a sleep sack too for Caity, she outgrew it too fast though, seemed like a good idea.
I so love that picture of Alice…her expression is great!
That blanket sounds like something that would’ve been great for our swaddle loving Grace when she was a wee one. The tighter the better. She still likes being held close.
That Eric…how brilliant to find the dryer sound!
It could be too, that Alice wants to be a belly sleeper… Carmen is… I know it is very highly frowned upon, but the day after Carmen was born, she slept 10 min on her back and 3 hours on her belly… NO one said anything to me in the hospital… I truly think if I had let Mya be a belly sleeper at 2 and 3 months, she would have been a better napper… Carmen takes regular naps, and sleeps 4-5 hours at a time at night, but on her belly…
Hi Sarah,
I was in your position and though it was tough, I went for 12 weeks after my daughter’s birth averaging 3 to 4 hours sleep every 20 hours.
Finally, one day, I put Jayde down on her tummy. She slept for 4 hours and then the next day, she slept 5 hours. After a few friends chewed me out for doing this, I began to put Jayde on her back and the crying and sleeplessness continued for another 4 months all the while going through colic as well.
By this point, the lack of sleep I was experiencing was causing me to lose my grip on my mental state, so I made a decision to no longer listen to what everyone else had to say and proceeded to put Jayde to sleep on her tummy. By the time she was 8 months, she would sleep from 10:30pm to 6:30 am. However, my postpartum was now deeply rooted, primarily because I refused to allow myself to relax fully because so many people had scared me to death that my baby was going to die … I wasted many, many, many hours of when I could be sleeping – watching her sleep.
I know this doesn’t work for most but it worked for me and I wished, looking back now, that people had bit their tongues and let me do what was best for the both of us.
Ps, three years later, I’m finally off Prozac. Because this whole experience of fighting for sleep was so all-consuming, I have no desire to have any more children.
If this offends anyone, it’s the truth and I have no reservations getting it off my chest. Sleep deprivation screws you over in so many ways. There’s not enough time in the world for me to explain how.
doodlesmom, you can get sleepsacks for older Children too… My 3 yr old LOVES her sleep sack in the winter… She wears it under her blankets…
Thanks Sarah, great idea. I received the first one as a gift and didn’t explore other options. Caity constantly kicks off her covers in the winter so that might solve the problem
Cindy: I know what you mean. You get stuck between the people who “mean well” and those who think everyone is entitled to their opinion. I put both of my kids on their sides to sleep because I didn’t want them to have flat heads. They survived quite well even though the doctors and other people told me to put them on their backs.
When Cait was in the hospital they put her on her side and I said to one of the nurses, well you do it, why can’t I – she told me it was because she was on monitors etc so that made it ok. Still in furiating when someone tells you how to look after your own child when your instinct tells you something different…
ITA with you Doodlesmom… Thats why Carmen is a belly sleeper and does very well with it…
>Doodles,
Jayde was a good side sleeper but the novelty wore off by the time she was 1 month old. I have a good friend who is blessed with a side sleeper. The kid sleeps like a champ!
Since Brady was able to roll, he slept on his side. There was no use trying to put him back on his back all the time. He has been a tummy sleeper for a long time. I’d always put him to sleep on his back, but you never know what position he’d end up in.
Do what you feel is best. If someone has a tummy sleeper out there, give in! And, if it makes you sleep better at night, maybe get one of those fancy sleep monitors
[...] Colleen (April 2, 2009) – Since Brady was able to roll,… [...]
Congratulations. Listening to them cry can be the worst feeling in the world but with my kids, in my experience, it’s the only way they would “learn” to sleep. Congrats on getting over the hardest part.