I Hate Teething

Yes, you read the time stamp correctly.  I have completely given up on getting any sleep. 

After doing so well with our new sleep plan, E is now back to waking up every 30 minutes-1 hour, all night long, again. When she wakes up, she screams and refuses to even lay back down, no matter what else we try.  It has been like this for over a week now.  I am so frustrated I could cry. 

I am 99.9% sure it is teething pain that is waking her up.  She's been working on her molars (all four are erupted now, and hugely swollen).  We've been alternating giving her Tylenol and Motrin, but nothing seems to bring her any relief. 

I feel so bad for her that she is in pain, but I am SO TIRED.

Teething, Dairy, and Sleep Plan: Day 17

E has had quite an eventful 24 hours.

We've discovered a possible reason why her sleep had regressed these past few days... She's been growing FOUR molars!  We knew she had been teething, but last night discovered she has not one, but two, molars popping through!  And she has two more that are so swollen they will surely erupt any day now.  Poor girl!

Also... it seems she has been "dairy-ed" again.  Her little stomach is so upset.  I feel SO bad for her, and don't know how this could have happened again.  Since the great dairy-carrot incident, I have read every label of every food product to pass her lips.  I have a list of the names of "hidden dairy" ingredients in my phone to check against ingredient lists.  We haven't eaten in any restaurants, where she may have consumed questionable ingredients.  The only thing I can think is that she must have eaten something at the Superbowl party we went to, even though I was the only one to feed her and asked our friend (the host) about dairy in all of the food before giving her anything.  I just don't know what else I can do, short of not letting her eat anything that I haven't read the ingredients list of or personally prepared myself.  But I can't let this keep happening... Other food-allergy sufferers, how do you handle this?

On a positive note, E slept from 8:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m., uninterrupted, last night!  SIX WHOLE HOURS! Then she only woke one more time before waking up for the day around 6:00 a.m.  WHOOHOO!!!!! 

Sleep Plan: Day 13

The Sleep Plan is not working.  E is not sleeping.  No one in our family is sleeping.  And that makes us all very, very miserable.

After much discussion, S and I are changing the sleep plan and our expectations, for now.  Maybe we will try again in the future, but for now, we are abandoning the "cry it out until she falls asleep at all costs" portion of the sleep plan.  Its just not working.  She will cry for 3+ hours and still not sleep.  Or, fall asleep standing up because she won't even lay down.  She is SO stubborn.

So, we have made some slight changes to our plan:

• Strict wake-up time of 8:00 every morning. -- No change.
• First nap 2.5 hours after she wakes up. -- First nap (attempt) 60-90 minutes after she wakes up.  [Note: she has not napped in 13 days, other than last weekend when she fell asleep in the car while we were driving to visit my friend.]
• Nurse her before her nap.  Then, put her down for her nap awake and do not return for 60 minutes.  If she is still awake after 60 minutes, the "nap" is over, and we try again at her next scheduled nap time. -- No change.  
• Repeat same routine for her afternoon nap at 2:00 p.m. -- No change, although sometimes we bump it up to 1:00 p.m. if she is extremely grouchy.  But she always goes down between 1:00-2:00. p.m.  (Not that it matters, since she doesn't sleep anyway!)
• Regular bedtime routine and have her in bed by 8:00 p.m.  I will nurse her before bedtime, but we will put her down awake.  At night, we can go in to reassure her/soothe her as often as needed, but we cannot pick her up until 60 minutes pass.  After 60 minutes, we can pick her up and rock her, etc., but must put her back down awake. -- No change, however, now, after 60 minutes, we go in, physically lay her down, and soothe her to sleep (either by patting/stroking her chest, or just sitting next to her without touching until she falls asleep).  It literally only takes 2-3 minutes and is a compromise we are willing to make, in order for all of us to get some sleep.
• Only allowing her to nurse twice per night.  Since she is used to nursing all night long, I hate to just cut her off cold-turkey, so we decided to cut her back gradually.  For the first week, I will let her nurse once after midnight and once after 4:00 a.m.  Next week (assuming she is still waking multiple times...) she will only be allowed to nurse once, and only after 2:00 a.m.  Each time she nurses, she must be put back down awake.  -- No change.
• NO SLEEPING IN OUR BED NO MATTER WHAT. -- No change. 

We've been doing this plan the past several nights and it is working much better for us.  E has been sleeping from 9:00ish p.m. until 7:00ish a.m. and only waking 2-3 times, which is better than before.  Also, when she wakes up at night, she is quickly soothed back to sleep by me or S patting/stroking her chest.  Of course I wish she would sleep all night without waking, but this is still SO much better than before!  And, perhaps most importantly, she has not slept in our bed once since we started all of this.  Hooray!

So, for now, that's the new plan.  Who knows, maybe the original plan would have worked for us eventually, but we just couldn't take it any more.  We are hoping that by giving E an hour to soothe herself before intervening, she will eventually figure it out and just go to sleep on her own.  Until then, though, we are happy to step in for a few minutes if that's what she needs.  

Anyway, that's where we are at with the sleep training.  I know others might not "give up" so easily, but for now, this is working for us, and that's all I can ask for at this point.  :-)

A Positive Post

I am so tired of being exhausted and frustrated with sleep training, that I thought it was time for me to focus on some positive happenings.

Despite all of the frustrations this past week, I feel like we have made a modicum of progress in the sleep department.  E has gone from absolutely refusing to sleep in her own bed to sleeping there for up to 3 hours at a time.  Previously, she would wake up the second we tried to lay her down in it, no matter how long/how deep she had been sleeping.  It was as if she could sense we were about to lay her down in her bed, and she absolutely would not tolerate it (despite having no issue with us laying her down on our bed, the guest bed, the couch... only her bed).  Also, she has gone from hysterically screaming through hours of bedtime and nap attempts to only mildly fussing and sometimes even resting quietly by herself for 10-20 minutes at a time.

Its the small victories, right? 

Another positive thing that we have done this weekend is go visit a friend of mine and her daughter yesterday.  We were friends in high school, then as life would have it we drifted apart and didn't really talk much until our daughters were born, when we reconnected via Facebook.  Her daughter was born the day after E, and since then we have been in constant contact.  It has been really nice to reconnect with her and to have someone else who I know "in real life" who is literally going through the exact same things we are on a daily basis.

Anyway, we finally got a chance to go visit them yesterday and had a wonderful time.  I hadn't seen her in almost 10 years, and we of course had never met each other's husbands or daughters.  But we all hit it off immediately and had a great day just hanging out, watching our babies play and explore, and reminiscing about old times.  It was so much fun, we are already starting to plan our next visit! :-)

Lastly... E is 99% walking!  This morning we were playing on the floor, and she took 3-4 steps totally unassisted between me and S.  She was so proud of herself, it was like a light switch flipped and suddenly now she "gets it".  All day today she has continued to let go of whatever she is holding on to and take 3-5 steps on her own!  By the end of the week, I am sure she will be toddling all over the place.  We are so proud of her! :-)

Now, if only she could figure out this sleeping thing...

Sleep Plan: Day 5

Yesterday's sleep plan experience can be summed up in one word.  HORRIFIC.

E woke up yesterday morning at 5:45 a.m. and would not go back to bed, despite us giving her nearly an hour to fuss and try to go back to sleep.

Since she had gotten up for the day so early, I tried putting her down for her first nap around 8:00 a.m.  She was SO exhausted, but wouldn't sleep.  She was practically falling asleep in the living room around 10:00 a.m., so I tried again.  Another 60 minutes of failure to nap and and an "I-don't-want-to-go-to-sleep" poop.  She finally went to sleep when I put her down for her afternoon nap, but only after her 60 minutes had passed and I went into the room with her.  Once I was in the room, she was asleep in minutes.  (I know that is cheating, to soothe her at nap time, but she was SO TIRED and I was afraid the more overtired she got, the less chance we would have of her ever going to sleep.)  She slept for 45 minutes.

Bedtime last night took nearly two hours, and again, she fell asleep only when one of us was in the room with her.  I went to check on her, sat on our bed (again, not touching her), and she was asleep in seconds.  The rest of the night, she was awake every 1-2 hours, with varying success in getting back to sleep.  Needless to say, we are all so freaking tired today we can barely function.

I know we are still within the normal range for not having success with our sleep plan yet.  I also know that especially stubborn babies (*cough* E *cough*) can take even longer than average.  However, I am feeling extremely frustrated at this point.  I thought we were finally getting somewhere, and then last night was a major regression.  I just want this to work.  I hate doing this to E and I just want it to be over.

I know there is no easy solution, I'm just having a tough time this morning.  No doubt made worse by the fact that I have maybe had 8 total hours of sleep in the past two days. 

So, lets troubleshoot what might be going on.  E does better with us in the room, so I don't think that her being in our room is the issue.  It is also not something we are willing to change at this time.  Moving beyond that, I know we need to break this habit of E needing us in the room to fall asleep, but I don't know what else to do.  We are almost a week in, and she will not even lay down to try to sleep on her own.  She will lay there and soothe herself to sleep quickly when we are in the room, but if we leave her awake, the second we walk out the door, she stands back up and starts crying again.  On the two nights she did fall asleep on her own, it was after 2-3 hours of screaming, and she fell asleep standing up.  She WILL NOT lay down, and I don't know how to force her to, or if that is even possible.  If we could just get her to lay down on her own, I'm sure she would be asleep so much faster.  Any suggestions there?

Other than me giving her three opportunities to nap yesterday, and soothing her to sleep during a nap twice (in the past week), we have followed the sleep plan to a T.  I don't know what else to do there.  Do we completely stop soothing her or checking on her, period?  Just let her cry as long as it takes, no matter what? 

Other random notes:  We added a fleece sleep sack to the equation a few days ago, in case she was getting too cold and that was causing her to wake up at night.  She also has a fan for white noise, a dim night light, and a music box on her Pack-N-Play that she can turn on and off herself.  Oh, and she has a stuffed animal that has always been her bedtime lovey, which she does sleep with every night, also in her bed.  We also have been offering her extra snacks during the day, to make sure she has ample opportunities to eat so that she won't wake up hungry at night wanting to nurse.

Do any of you have any other thoughts?  Am I missing something?  I am in uncharted territory here, folks.

Sleep Plan: Day 4

I hope you all aren't getting bored of my sleep posts.  If so, I'm sorry.  You might want to skip this one. ;-)

Not much has changed, so I'll keep it brief and to the point.

Night #4 went about like Night #3.  E went to sleep "on her own" with me in the room after fussing (without me in the room) for about 15 minutes.  Then she woke up about an hour and a half later, and majorly fought going back to sleep.  Once we got her back down, she again only woke around 1:30 a.m. and again around 4:30 a.m.  I'll take it!

Naps are still terrible.  No news there.

Sleep Plan: Day 3

At the risk of jinxing everything, I think we might finally be making a bit of progress!

E was only awake TWICE after we went to bed last night, and both times she nursed then S soothed her back to sleep in her bed after only a few minutes!  She slept from 10:30-1:15ish, 1:30ish-4:45, and 4:45-6:30ish.  For those of you keeping score, that is two three-hour stretches... which may sound horrific to a normal person, but compared to how E has been sleeping, is amazing.  Hooray! 

As for naps yesterday, she pretty much split the difference.  Her first nap, I put her down and she got quiet after only four minutes of fussing.  She never went to sleep, but she stayed in her bed and quietly rested for over an hour.  YAY for soothing herself and resting quietly without screaming through "nap" time!

Then, she turned around and fought her second nap with everything she had.  60 solid minutes of screaming/crying/fussing.  Total nap FAIL.

Bedtime started out strong, but then crashed and burned.  Since she had skipped her second nap of the day, E was beyond ready for bed by 6:00 p.m.  We put her down and she fussed and whined (but not screaming and tantrum-ing!) on and off for about 45 minutes.  She got more upset around 7:00 p.m., so we checked her diaper to be sure she didn't pull one of her patented I-don't-want-to-go-to-sleep-poops, then laid her back down and soothed her for a few minutes.  Asleep at 7:14 p.m. Success!  Then she woke up around 8:00 p.m. and would. not. go. back. to. sleep. although she was so, so exhausted.  S and I took turns soothing her every 30 minutes or so while she fussed and cried for two and a half hours.  At 10:30 p.m., I noticed she had been quiet for several minutes and went back to check on her.  This is what I found.

Just pretend this baby is blonde and in a Pack-N-Play, not on a shelf.

Sleeping standing up, with her head on the rail of the Pack-N-Play.  For the second night in a row.  I gently laid her down and she (mercifully) stayed asleep.

I don't know why, but in that moment of seeing her like that, I felt so incredibly sad and guilty.  I'm sure I was just projecting my own emotions on the situation, but I teared up when I saw her standing there sleeping and could only think of how she must have been standing back in that room, literally for hours, waiting for her Mama and Dada who never came.  It was heartbreaking.  I'm going to cry again now just thinking about it!

Thankfully, I feel a little less guilty today due to her being in a great mood. I can tell she got some real rest last night for the first time in weeks.  She has been happy and goofy and doesn't appear to hate me, so that makes me feel much better.  :-)  I am hoping tonight is even easier!

Sleep Plan: Day 2

Day 2 of our plan didn't show much improvement.  No surprise there.

Naps yesterday were still terrible.  The first nap she screamed/fussed for the entire 60 minutes and never went to sleep.  The second nap, she cried for 60 minutes, then I went in and soothed her (without picking her up) and she almost immediately fell asleep.  (I know, her "nap" is supposed to be over after 60 minutes, but she had slept all of 6.5 of the the last 36 hours, and we had church obligations, and I could NOT take her in the state she was in.  Letting her sleep vs. keeping the schedule was the lesser of two evils.)  That nap lasted 30 minutes. 

She was a monster yesterday afternoon, throwing multiple tantrums out of sheer frustration and exhaustion.

Last night went marginally better than the first.  Bedtime at 8:00 p.m.  She cried for an entire hour when we put her down to sleep, then finally fell asleep when I went in to soothe her around 9:00 p.m.  The rest of the night, she was still awake every 1-2 hours but I stuck with keeping her in her bed and only nursing her at the scheduled times.  There was lots and lots of screaming and crying.  S went to sleep on the couch, he was so frustrated that he couldn't take it any more.  I was so exhausted that after one waking, I fell asleep with her still crying.  I honestly have no idea whether she soothed herself to sleep, or if she just continued to cry until I woke up the next time.

I really hope she figures this out soon.  We are all SO TIRED.

The Sleep Plan

Houston, we have a plan.

We have decided to try a slightly modified version of the sleep plan Nicole at The Kavanaugh Report posted awhile back.  She got the plan from a behavioral therapist when they were having trouble with her son, Henry's, sleep.  It sounds like Henry and E have a lot in common in the stubborn personality and sleep departments, so I am hoping we will have some measure of success with this plan.

We have two things we would like to ultimately accomplish with this plan:  1) cut back on E's night feedings and 2) get E to fall asleep on her own, in her Pack-N-Play, and get her to stay there all night.

Our official sleep plan looks like this: 

• Strict wake-up time of 8:00 every morning.  E can get up earlier than this if she is ready, but we will not let her sleep any later than 8:00 a.m.
• First nap 2.5 hours after she wakes up. 
• Nurse her before her nap.  Then, put her down for her nap awake and do not return for 60 minutes.  If she is still awake after 60 minutes, the "nap" is over, and we try again at her next scheduled nap time.
• Repeat same routine for her afternoon nap at 2:00 p.m.
• Regular bedtime routine and have her in bed by 8:00 p.m.  I will nurse her before bedtime, but we will put her down awake.  At night, we can go in to reassure her/soothe her as often as needed, but we cannot pick her up until 60 minutes pass.  After 60 minutes, we can pick her up and rock her, etc., but must put her back down awake.  
• Only allowing her to nurse twice per night.  Since she is used to nursing all night long, I hate to just cut her off cold-turkey, so we decided to cut her back gradually.  For the first week, I will let her nurse once after midnight and once after 4:00 a.m.  Next week (assuming she is still waking multiple times...) she will only be allowed to nurse once, and only after 2:00 a.m.  Each time she nurses, she must be put back down awake. 
• NO SLEEPING IN OUR BED NO MATTER WHAT.

In addition to what I outlined above, we will also be making a real effort to ensure E eats plenty of solid foods during the day, so that she won't be hungry/trying to make up calories by nursing during the night.  

I'm not expecting miracles with this plan, but I am hoping to at least improve on what we've got going on right now... which, as you all know, is pretty dismal.  If she will just go to sleep on her own, and only wake a few times and eventually be able to get herself back to sleep when that happens, I will consider this a great success!  Anything beyond that would be a fantastic bonus.


So, all of that said... We decided to implement this plan yesterday.  S and I are both off from work on Monday, which will give us some extra time to be tired with minimal consequences.  It will also give me until Friday to be home with E before she goes back to the babysitter, so we will have almost a full week to hopefully get into some kind of groove.

Day one of The Plan went almost exactly as I thought it would.  I rocked her to sleep for her first nap, so that we weren't starting out with her already extremely overtired.  For her second nap, we put her down at 2:15 p.m. We let her cry for 60 minutes, then went in to reassure her every 30 minutes after that.  She was awake and crying until 5:15 p.m., when I went in and patted her chest until she fell asleep.*  She slept 30 minutes.

Bedtime last night wasn't any better.  I nursed her and we put her to bed at 8:00 p.m.  She cried and fussed until 11:45 p.m. (with us checking on her periodically), when S went to check on her, and found her sleeping standing up in her Pack-N-Play.  He tried to lay her down, and she woke up, so I nursed her and patted her chest again until she fell asleep.  She was then awake at 2:00 a.m., 4:30 a.m. (nursed), and 6:30 a.m.  I am proud to say we were able to get her back to sleep in the Pack-N-Play at 2:00 and 4:30, which I consider a small victory in itself.   I tried to soothe her back to sleep for about 45 minutes once she woke up at 6:30, then gave up and decided to just get up for the day. 

She is now fussing through her 60 minutes of morning nap time.  I'm really, really hoping today goes better for us!  I know it will likely take at least 3-4 days to see any real improvement, so I'm not holding my breath.

Wish us luck!


*After hearing her scream for three hours at that nap attempt, I emailed Nicole to find out what they did after Henry failed to fall asleep after 60 minutes.  I had assumed E had to stay back there, so she didn't think she had "won" by fighting sleep for an hour, but Nicole told me that after 60 minutes they considered the nap to be over, so we modified our plan accordingly.  It sounds much more manageable to me than listening to E CIO for three hours every time she has to take a nap!