Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Way too much information on sleep

Last Friday, I was talking with Eva via email. We were discussing Porgie's inability to sleep through the night. Neither of us could figure out the problem. So, I decided update my readers on everything related to Porgie's sleep. Some of this information as been discussed before, but I want to give you a clear picture of exactly what is happening. If you have any pearls of wisdom, please leave a comment. I am desperate for advice.

Porgie has been a horrible sleeper since day one. Initially, I believe her reflux contributed to her wakefulness. She was obviously in pain. At first, I just assumed her crying was related to gas. I tried to remedy the problem with Mylacon, to no avail. She was almost a month old before she was diagnosed with reflux.

Later, I believe the apnea monitor encouraged her wakefulness. We had many false alarms in the middle of the night. Both Porgie and I would be startled awake by the sound of that damn monitor. In my sleepy daze, it would often take a minute or two before I could figure out how to turn the machine off. It wasn't removed until my baby was 4 months old. By this time, I believe Porgie's sleeping habits were becoming ingrained.

After the newborn phase was over, I went out and bought this book. I read it from cover to cover, but could not bring myself to implement the techniques. It was basically a variation on crying-it-out. I went back to the bookstore and bought this book. The author also coslept with her children, and offered many gentle solutions to help your child sleep through the night. For weeks, I implemented her solutions. I failed to see any results. So, I decided to stop wasting my money on books that weren't helping.

However, this books did teach me the importance of developing a bedtime routine. Since about 3 months of age, we have used the same bedtime routine with Porgie. At 7:30, John gives her a bath. After the bath, she gets rubbed down with lotion. Then, John puts on her pajamas and sits her on my lap. He turns out the overhead light, and turns on the nightlight. I rock Porgie, while reading her 3 books. After the books, I feed her a bottle. She is usually out like a light around 8:00.

Although we successfully developed to bedtime routine, Porgie was still waking 3 or 4 times per night. After 7 months of sleep deprivation, I was slowly turning into a monster. As I explained earlier, the lack of sleep was making me a cranky and mean person. All of my relationships were beginning to suffer. Because I secretly enjoyed cosleeping with Porgie, I was reluctant to put her in the crib. After my body began showing signs of severe sleep deprivation (broken blood vessels in my eyes, horrible headaches, weird ridges in my fingernails, etc.), John decided that it was time to transfer Porgie to her crib. I was so grateful that he had finally stepped in. At that time, I needed someone else to take control of the sleep situation.

The transition to the crib was a lot less painful than I expected. We had a few rough nights, but she quickly learned that the crib was a place for sleeping. Now, I can actually put her in the crib wide wake, and she will put herself to sleep with 10 minutes - with NO CRYING. I read that once a baby learns how to put herself to sleep, she will naturally start sleeping for longer stretches. Of course, Porgie decided to take a different route.

At 9 months, Porgie still routinely wakes twice per night. She will not go back to sleep until I feed her a bottle. If I decide not to feed her, she will scream and scream and scream. I can only handle so much crying, before I break down and feed her. I honestly can't tolerate the screaming. It makes me nervous - almost panicky. My instincts tell me to go to her, comfort her, and feed her. It is an overwhelming feeling.

So, this is my current situation. How did you get your baby to sleep through the night? Tell me what worked for you.

Isn't she precious?

14 comments:

Ashley said...

I dont mind sharing what worked for us but it will be LONG! Would you rather I email you?

Christy said...

You can type it in the comments or email me. My email address is cnpurcell@verizon.net

Amber said...

I was one of the lucky ones with my boys and they were each sleeping through the night at 6wks and then I had each of them going to bed by themselves at 9 months. I did the cry it out routine and that's what worked for me. Although one of my friends said that her son has acid reflux and they used tums on him and that seemed to help. He is still not sleeping through the night but with the tums he will sleep longer than without the tums. She would only give him a half piece of it.

Anonymous said...

This is my diagnosis: It's habit. It sucks, but eventually it will stop. Maybe you can make it stop, but maybe you can't.

Um, but it might be a while. My mom said I was up every two hours until I was 10 months, and then I was up at least once a night until I was 2. Some babies are just hard like that.

To make it stop, you would probably have to do cry it out to get her out of the habit. But I couldn't do that with a screamer, either.

As you know, I have an insanely good sleeper and didn't do anything to make that happen, so I really have no idea what to do. If she's going to get up a lot anyway, and cosleeping makes that easier, maybe just do that. But if cosleeping doesn't make it easier, then no. Do whatever you have to do to make it easier.

I'm just theorizing here, but maybe give her less and less milk until she is out of the habit? Or give her a pacifier? Try to stuff more food in her during the day? Shorter naps? Longer naps? Change the bedtime?

Basically though I think she just wants/need to eat at night. Does she go right back to sleep after eating?

Christy said...

Eva,
When I go in to feed Porgie at night, she will only drink an ounce or two. She usually goes right back to sleep, but not always.

I think Porgie is trying to wean herself from the bottle during the day. She will only drink about 3 or 4 ounces every 5 or 6 hours (she use to drink 8 ounces every 4 to 5 hours). In fact, I just tried to feed her and she only drank one ounce. So, I can't feed her anymore formula during the day - maybe I'll try to increase the amount of solids I am giving her.

Porgie was napping for 2 hours, twice a day. Since last week, she has been napping for about 1 hour, twice a day - sometimes less. She goes to bed at 8:00, which I think is a very reasonable bedtime.

Maybe you're right. Maybe Porgie is just a difficult sleeper (Damn, I feel sorry for your mom - I am convinced that she really is superwoman!).

Cagey (Kelli Oliver George) said...

Damn. I wish I had advice. The only advice I can give is to keep arming yourself with information so that you can mix n' match a solution that works best for YOU and for PORGIE.

Have you read Ask Moxie's primer on sleep? It's pretty helpful on sleep personalities. Here's the link (I STILL have it bookmarked in anticipation for Kid #2) Link: http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2007/02/your_comments_o.html

Okay. Taking a breath. I really recommend Dr. Ferber's book. But WAIT! I do NOT subscribe to his philosophy. It did NOT work for our kid and based on Moxie's sleep personalities, I can see exactly and precisely why Ferber would never work for our kid. However. I still recommend reading SOME of the book because it's a great, awesome primer on the science of sleep itself. For example, the initial sections that described the differences between adult sleep and infant sleep were invaluable for understanding why my son was only taking 45 minute naps.

I wish I had some advice, but will say that we have always done whatever worked. Whatever got him to sleep, that's what we did.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry I don't have any help for you because I'm one of those people you would hate. My son slept through the night starting at 7 weeks, waking once to nurse and then back to sleep for another 4-5 hours. Once we switched over to formula and started solids, he slept completely through the night, 11 hours straight. The only thing I could guess was that we started him on a strict bedtime routine very early on, at 3 weeks old. We called it the 4 b's: bath, book, boob (later bottle), bed. And I know that's not going to help you now at this point.

Believe me, I live in constant fear of subsequent children that may be the death of me because of my first being so good at sleeping. I hope you get it figured out soon and that blissful nights of sleep are around the corner!

Em said...

I used the baby whisperer pick up and pit down routine. Hard work for 3nights and then he turned in to a great sleeper. The book is avail but couldnt get along with putting it in to practice, then i saw the Tv programmes on uk tv there were about 5 episodes that covered sleep. The thing i couldnt/wouldnt do was crying out/controlled crying - i cant stand hearing crying it upsets me. Not saying it doesnt work but it wasnt for me.

I have taped the tv programme to Dvd could do you a copy?

Margo said...

Oh, man. You're preachin' to the choir sista'. My first was a horrible sleeper. h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e! I can't offer much advice, but I can say to just hang in there. This too shall pass.
We used The No Cry Sleep Solutuion. It worked well for us.
Hugs...

Christy said...

Cagey,
Thanks for the link and the book recommendation. I will definitely check both of them out.

Dooney,
I am glad Junebug is a good sleeper. I hope baby number 2 is a good sleeper too. I wouldn't wish this much sleep deprivation on my worst enemey.

Billy's mum,
I would love a copy of that TV program. You're so sweet.

Margo,
Thanks for the words of encouragement.

tifferny said...

god christy i feel for you. like eva's little nora, mikaela is a champion sleeper and has been since 4 weeks old. i am very interested in finding out what works for you, as my friend is suffering with the same issue with her daughter. she has tried EVERYTHING to no avail.

p.s. THANK YOU SO MUCH for the award! i now have everything up on my blog. :)

Paula said...

OMG!! I just found your blog via Catizhere and man, I'm going through the exact same thing! Ella gets up once a night to feed. She is 8 months old and I have been trying everything to no avail.

The only difference is that she is taking a full 8 oz at 2am. I've tried feeding her more during the day, but she won't take it. We are on solids but some days she won't eat!! I'm starting to beleive that I'm just going to have to live with getting up at night.

Good luck to you!! I'll let you know if I find something that is working!!

Em said...

I'll get your copy done and email you.

Anth said...

I recommend Marc Weissbluth's Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I know, another book. But based on what I read in that book, I would say, try putting her to bed at 7 pm. One of the key points of Dr Weissbluth's book is: illogical as it sounds, sleep begets more sleep. His advice to pretty much all parents with poor sleepers is put that kid to bed earlier. A baby that is tired has adrenaline etc in his/her blood, and this leads to poor night sleep.

Baby E goes to bed at 6 pm. Yeah it puts a crimp in my social life, but she sleeps straight through to 7 am, so I'm not complaining.