Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Sleep

I asked daycare to provide me with Ava's typical schedule.  This was in their response:

"We have an overall schedule for the infant room that we use.  I will list it below.  A lot of the times, Ava doesn't follow the schedule but we really try."

Now I hate to say it but I find some peace/relief in this comment.  I am glad to hear that it isn't Ben and I doing anything wrong with Ava not sleeping.  That Ava is consistently not sleeping rather she is at home or at daycare.   However, I do not like the fact that she does not sleep well. 

Ava usually takes quick little 45 minute naps and still isn’t sleeping through the night.  We had hit a rough patch at night for the last couple of months where she was not sleeping more than 3-4 hours.  I thought I had a newborn again.  It was an adjustment especially because at 2 months she was sleeping from 7:30-3:00, nurse, and then back to sleep easily and up around 7ish.  

We kept blaming the lack of sleep on allergies, congestion, and teething.  I strongly feel like they were apart of the problem.   We didn’t know what to do and still don’t know really.  We just know that 1) she is a happy baby for the most part – think how happy she would be if she slept more! and 2) we are exhausted.

We have started increasing her milk intake.  We do have to supplement breast milk with formula but she has more breast milk.  She eats cereal or other food 2x a day. We are doing baby led weaning so she is definitely getting some food especially right before bed.  We were given a lullabies CD with heartbeats in the background and that seems to help more too.   We even swaddled her some.  Sometimes the swaddle works and sometimes it is like it keeps her up.

She is so squirmy most of the time.  We are using a bouncer and johnny jumpup and I am hoping that she will start exerting some of that energy more and more to help her sleep better.

Anyways, we are tired and open to suggestions how to get our sweet baby girl to sleep better so we can sleep better.  Or do we just wait it out and hopefully once crawling/walking she will sleep better? 

She does fall asleep well she just doesn't stay asleep.  We do find it best if she is on her belly.  We do not have her swaddle when she is sleeping on her belly. 

Please note- The cry it out method- I understand it works for some; I am just not ready for that yet. 

2 comments:

  1. Here are the posts I did about sleep when Stella was about that age. http://mycheapversionoftherapy.com/tag/sleep/

    Maybe you'll find something useful in the comments.

    Troublesometots.com was the best website I found for help.

    I really don't think it's about milk or food intake at this point - it's more about her habits and self soothing. Check out troublesome tots. Put down drowsy but awake. Let her fuss for a few minutes (NOT CIO - but fussing is different - a lot of times they can settle themselves). If she is nursing in the middle of the night, don't let her nurse back to sleep - let her nurse for a few minutes, then pull her off and lay her back down.

    Good luck!

    -- ps, when they start doing new physical things like crawlng/walking, sleep usually REGRESSES for a couple of nights, so don't wait for that. :)

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    Replies
    1. As always thank you so much!

      ps - Of course, two steps forward one step back!

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