Justin * Kristin * Hailey * Avery
Thursday, March 31, 2011
How can I fix it.....
**Sorry, it won't let me separate the paragraphs!** .....if I don't know what's wrong!?!? HAILEY HATES SLEEP!!! That is the conclusion I have drawn and I have NO IDEA why. The only thing Justin and I can come up with is bad dreams, but it just doesn't make sense.......BABIES SLEEP, that is what they do: EAT, SLEEP, MESS THEIR DIAPERS...... Let me give you some examples..... I HAVE to rock her to sleep!! I can put her down and let her cry it out for 5-10, that is nothing torturous, but aren't they eventually suppose to get the drill and stop?! She fights when I rock her, she rolls and wiggles and rubs her eyes and nose. She falls asleep and then cries out for no reason waking herself up again. You can tell when she is tired and yet, she will still stay up for 2 more hours. 98% of the time, she will only sleep with her binky, but she will spit it out just to fight sleep. Today she had a less than an hour afternoon nap (she naps twice a day) and still was up till after 11! Last night, she went to bed at 12:30 and was up at 8, babies are suppose to sleep longer than 7 1/2 hours right?! Earlier in the week she woke up in the middle of the night and 3 times I rocked her back to sleep and as soon as I laid her in the crib, she woke up, so we had to sleep on the couch, cuz when I tried to sleep in my own bed holding her, she saw Daddy and that was just too distracting and exciting! :) We were up for over two hours that night. Last week, 2 nights in a row, she went to bed and an hour later woke up crying and I COULD NOT get her back to sleep to save my life, she wasn't hungery or messy. I tried 20 different positions, rooms of the house, lighting levels and finally an hour later after crying herself back awake mulitple times each night, she would go back to sleep. It's not that she wasn't tired and wanted to play, she was all cozied up to me with her eyes shut and would just START CRYING out of nowhere! AM I CRAZY?! Please tell me......I know babies have rough nights, but this is constant! No, she's not sick and if she is, there are NO symptoms. Yes, she is a light sleeper too.....We have creaky hardwood floors, so you can't go in her room while she is napping. It has gotten to the point we have to watch TV in our bedroom bcuz the TV in the living room is too close to her room and wakes her up. Sometimes dog barking wakes her, sometimes not. I pissed a guy in my ward off not too long ago bcuz I publicly complained about "the person who HONKS 20 feet outside Hailey's window EVERY week DAY at 7:30am and wakes her up 2 out of 3 days" on FB and apparently it was him and he was ticked at me even though his honking wakes her up. Sorry, but my baby won't sleep and I was upset!!! At first I blamed it on "She's a newborn, she doesn't have a routine," but for at least a month now I've tried to feed her so that there is a bottle shortly before bed to either keep her little belly full or even to help her get to sleep, I've tried to start getting her ready for bed at a decent hour and she just wants to BE UP and I've tried making her second nap earlier in the day. I know that colicky babies are up all night, but she doesn't cry. There really doesn't seem to be anything wrong, she just won't go to or stay asleep! Is this normal? Does anyone else know a baby who won't sleep, JUST BECAUSE!?!? (Not once in a while, ALL THE TIME for her whole life, she HATES SLEEP.) Other than that, she is perfect: she eats most anything you try to feed her, she is great in the stores, not bad at church, she breastfed well, she likes the bath and as we just discovered tonight, doesn't even mind having her teeth brushed, she is really good with shots, only cries for one min., loves the dogs, stays with anyone she knows really easily and has the BIGGEST smile around, she does wiggle too much when you change her diaper/dress her, but she's a GOOD, HAPPY baby, who just doesn't like to fall asleep. If you know of any babies with a natural aversion to sleep and know what the problem is, PLEASE give me some insight. Or did I just make this rant for nothing and they all are like that? I can't help her sleeping aversion if she can't tell me why she hates to sleep so much.
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6 comments:
You know how you see these cute little sleepy newborns that are awake only 4 out of 24 hours a day? Yeah, I totally think that's a lie because both of mine come out awake, alert and remain so. Lizzy was worse and by five months old she was taking irregular, short naps (think 20 minutes) and waking up every two hours in the night. I can't remember how many total hours she was getting, but I was only getting five nonconsecutive, so she couldn't have been much more than that, maybe 8 hours. She seemed to function ok during the day, so I thought maybe she wasn't sleepy.
I finally read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and while I felt it was very repetitive, it was also very informative.
What it comes down to is that when humans don't get enough sleep, we start to think we need less, but we function on a much lower level. I can't remember all the science behind it, but your baby needs that minimum amount of sleep, even if she doesn't think she does. There are many suggestions, but in our house the cry it out method was the most painful, and of course the only one that worked. A baby (as long as it's old enough to not have physical needs such as food during the night) probably struggles with sleep because they are unable to self-soothe. When Hailey wakes up in the middle of the night she's not used to having to calm herself back down.
Within that first week of having to cry it out (at 6 months old), Lizzy slept better at night and suddenly started taking normal, long naps. Once her body had reset to understand she needed that sleep, she was a pro.
It's not easy, but Hailey has to learn to sleep on her own, and until she does, she will continue to fight sleep beyond what is normal for a child.
Check out the book and scan through it because I haven't explained it very clearly here.
Stevie, thanks for commenting, I'm going CRAZY! I will check out that book! I guess I've only made her cry it out for 3-4 days in a row, I'll go for a week, she just gets BIG tears and a red face and it is so SAD!
ohh Hailey!! I love that girl!! YOu need to tae a few days and dedicate it to her! She needs to be "sleep trained" With noise as well so you are not changing your whole life to try an keep her to sleep!! While she is "crying it out" still vacuum, do other things around the house, etc... Have a routine. wake up in the morn, changer her, feed her play with her, and then repeat-- when thye are newborns I know they just do that 30 min eat, 30 minutes play, then lay them down to fall asleep on their own... repeat. Well Hailey is a lot older now and needs longer breaks between naps... so maybe do like, change, feed, play, snack, play, story, nap, repeat... Let her cry herself to sleep! I KNOW its hard! When I did that once I seriously just went outside on the porch for like 30 min and then went in and checked on her--- (mary i am talking about not Hailey :)) Anyway you can always call me when you are frustrated and I can come help you!! love ya
Oh and check out BABY WISE.... Best book EVER!
Oh Kristin!! I am so sorry that Hailey is not sleeping so neither are you! But I have no advice for you since I haven't done this yet!! Sorry I am no help! But I am thinking of you and hoping it gets better!!
So this is like a week late...but heres my two cents. Ryker was the same way! And I had THE hardest time with the cry it out! We really struggled! I couldn't stand to let him cry it out, and I had read so many other sleep methods. I had a handful of people tell me the after effects of cry it out and it just was really hard for me! We tried the cry it out a couple of times until finally I just cracked. I think you have to be at a breaking point where you can let them cry! Ryker had just turned one when I finally broke and new it just wasn't healthy for me or him. Now he will cry (most of the time not though) and be asleep within a minute or two. Most of the time he knows when he needs a nap and will whine until I put him in his bed. I think he understands sleep and actually likes it now!
But yes, some nights he would just want to be up and playing even though he only slept half hour all day. Because I wasn't ready yet to let him cry it out, I let him play. I'd bring out his toys and books and sometimes turn on a movie. If you aren't ready it wont work. And thats just what I experienced!
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