"I'm still tired!"
Our ultimate goal for this "no-cry sleep solution" is to get Quinn sleeping through the night. However, that goal feels like a loooong ways off, so I'm focusing on smaller goals. I'd be happy to get down to only 2-3 wakings a night. Yes, that sounds lovely, which tells you how bad our nights are.
Pantley has many suggestions to help parents make a plan to help their babies learn to sleep better. We have taken several of her suggestions to form our fairly basic plan to help Quinn sleep better. We are still at the beginning of our sleep solution and it will probably take several more weeks before we see any huge success, but there should be consistent, small successes along the way.
Our current goals (these will change or be modified as we move further in the direction of all-night sleep):
-Reduce Quinn's dependence on the pacifier for soothing himself to sleep by removing it from his mouth once he has mostly relaxed to sleep (but is still lightly asleep).
-Be consistent on Quinn's bedtime. We realized that we had been so focused on Aurora's bedtime that we have been completely forgetting to pay attention to when Quinn needs to sleep. Guess what? He appears to need to go to sleep at about the time we are putting Aurora down.
-Reduce the length of our nighttime soothing-back-to-sleep routine. Given that this is routine is mostly nursing and Quinn unlatches himself pretty quickly once he's done actively nursing, I'm not quite sure how to go about this. I want him to eat if he's hungry (and he is quite the hungry fellow) but I'd love to ditch nighttime feedings all together...eventually...
We are not always successful in meeting the steps to achieving these goals every day. Thankfully, this isn't a do-or-die system for getting a kiddo to sleep. Throughout the book, Pantley reminds parents that if their child isn't doing well with whatever step the parent is trying to accomplish, that it's OK to back off and give it a break until next time. Slow, steady, and gentle will do the trick.
So are we getting any more sleep around here? Well, I think we're headed in that general direction but last night (the SLEEP LOG night) was one of the worst we've had in a while...however, even with that, it's an improvement from last time, so we are getting there.
Day 10 Sleep Log Summary
Nap: close to 2 hrs (1 nap a day)
Typical naps for his age: 2-3 hours (1-2 naps a day)
Night time sleep: approximately 11 very restless hours
Typical night time sleep for his age: 11 1/2 - 12 hours per night
Wakings: 8 with long spans of not-quite-asleep-but-drowsy restlessness before sleep finally returned
Wakings typical for age: anywhere from 1-3 (or whatever the parent is willing to tolerate)
Total sleep per day: close to 13 hrs
Total recommended sleep per day for age: 13-14 hours
~Regina
Find all my No-Cry Sleep Solution Logs here!
2 comments:
Hey, for whatever it's worth, the pacifier removal thing made me think of something my parents did that I think they found helpful: When trying to wean one of us from a pacifier they would use scissors to cut the very tip of the nipple of the pacifier off. Then a week or so later, they would cut a little bit more off, and so on. What would happen is we would slowly be forced to work harder (or suck harder) to keep the pacifier in our mouth, and I think it would probably fall out of our mouths sooner on its own in the drifting to sleep process. Eventually we were no longer interested in our pacifiers which were more work than they were worth. I don't know if this would help you guys at all, but it might be worth a try to keep you from having to manually remove the pacifier every time he's falling asleep.
Thank you for the suggestion. I love hearing other ideas that have worked. However, that particular method of pacifier weaning is actually considered unsafe by current pediatric standards. Sure, it worked for ages, so maybe it's "unsafe" simply because of our sue-happy society, but I thought it should be pointed out. I believe the concern is that once the molded silicon (or rubber) is cut, it more easily breaks apart and the baby could aspirate it while sleeping.
"Go snippety-snip. When your child’s not around, cut the pacifier’s nipple a little, suggests Brenner, 'then show your child that the nipple has been damaged.' Explain that the pacifier is now dangerous and has to be thrown away. Never cut a pacifier and give it back to your child -- a step some parents take in an effort to wean -- as it poses a very real risk as a choking hazard. "
(From http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/crying-colic-9/using-pacifiers?page=2 on 10/20/12)
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