Monday, January 30th, 2006
A Happy Report
WOOHOO!!! My 100th post!
I hope I don’t jinx this by writing it down.
For the first 4 months of her life, I co-slept with Fiona. It just made things easier for both of us. She needed to be fed every few hours; I need my sleep. When it’s time for a feeding, I in my half-awake mode lift up my shirt and she latches onto my nipple. I then go back to sleep. For the next feeding, I put her on my other side. It was a happy arrangement for the most part. Sometimes I wake up to find my boob completely exposed and she’s asleep next to me. Our pediatrician advises us that as she grew bigger and older, she should be able to go longer stretches at night without a feeding. This was not happening, in fact, things got really really bad after she got her 4th month immunization shots. She wanted to be soothed for 3-4 hours continuously in the early mornings right before she wakes for the day. At first I thought it was a result of the shots and it will get better after she felt more like herself. It didn’t get better. It continued like that for over a week — her sucking on me or being held in my arms for 3-4 hours every morning in the wee hours. I was desperate for a change. I didn’t want another bad sleeper in the family (our older child who is 2.5 years old- long story for another day).
So on Friday the 13th (mere coincidence), I moved Fiona to her crib. I slept in a bed few feet away from her, in the same room. I was determined to only give her one feeding at night (around 9-11p.m.) and nothing until at least 5 a.m. It was tough. She fussed / cried every few hours and it was very tough listening to her cries. And by 5 or 6 a.m. I’m so tired from the bad sleep that I just take her into my bed and feed her, and we both proceed to fall asleep for a couple more hours. This went on for 2 weeks and her sleep didn’t get better. I was confusing the poor girl by taking her into my bed, by being inconsistent. And I wasn’t getting much sleep either, in fact, it was much worse than when we were co-sleeping.
After 2 weeks, I couldn’t take it anymore. I moved to the room next door. Boy did it get better. I still feed her around 9-11p.m. (sometimes she cries and I go in, other times I just pick her up while she’s still asleep to feed her). And she still fussed/cried at night. Usually I only hear her once or twice, and not for very long either. I wasn’t waken up by every little noise she made. She seems fine and happy when I go get her around 6.30 or 7 a.m. One morning I even found her cooing and playing with her toy when I opened her door. The only downside, and I know this will improve/adjust with time, is that I find myself having gigantic melon-like boobs in the morning.
It’s been 4 nights!
I hope this continues and maybe even a little improvement would be great, like no fusses/cries at all from 9p.m. until 7a.m. That, would be fan-f’ing-tastic. A girl can always hope, right?
Next, we tackle the older child’s sleeping habits. We’ll need lots of luck and good wishes on that one.
