Another Sleepless Night
I'm so tired. I think that this is worse than when she would get up during the night as a regular thing. I was used to functioning on little sleep then. But now I know how sweet a full night's sleep can be now. But it was all just a tease. Will I ever see a full night's rest again??
She was up three times last night. She'd wake wailing, I go in and give her the pacifier, and she goes right back to sleep. For an hour. Then she'd wake again. At 2:00 am, I gave her a bottle and some Tylenol, in case she was have some teeth pain. I was hoping that she'd sleep a good 5-6 hour stretch, like I know she can do. But she was up with the sun, rolling and playing at 5:15 am. I guess I should be grateful for that 3 hour stretch, huh?
So, a question for the experienced moms out there--what do I do? She's going to be at 7, and starts waking at 9-10. She doesn't want to play when she wakes. In fact, she seems to want to sleep, but can't without her pacifier. She has four pacifiers in her bed, but she doesn't find them on her own. Does it sound like teething? Or should I let her figure out how to soothe herself back to sleep? I really don't want to even attempt CIO if she's having teething pain. Can I give her a lovey to help her soothe herself back to sleep? I think the pediatrician said 6 months. What did you do??? I want to sleep again!
posted by Christine at 8/02/2005 09:07:00 AM
2 Comments:
I took Tristyn's pacifier away from her so that she could learn to soothe herself. It sounds like everytime she looses her binky she wakes up. Maybe you could try slowly taking it away from her during the day and see how she responds.
Hi, Christine. :) This is Lisa (beamer) from Parenting After Loss (not sure if you remember me). Sorry to be posting anonymously, but I just can't figure out how to set up an identity on Blogger! (blush)
Anyway, I just wanted to agree with the PP about weaning Maura from the pacifier. We weaned my son from the pacifier around 9 months for the same reason, and though it was difficult at first (he did have to go through a little CIO), it only took a couple of nights or so. And, it made all the difference in the world! We wished we would have done it sooner in fact.
Now, I won't say that will be the end of overnight wake-ups...at 19 months, we still go through cycles where we have to do a little sleep training (for different reasons each time...currently weaning from the bedtime bottle and a recent bad habit of needing to sleep with Mom & Dad). But the goal is to teach her to fall asleep on her own without any aids (bottle, pacifier, rocking, etc). Otherwise, when she wakes in the night (which we all do, but usually fall asleep again without realizing it) she will expect to go to sleep in exactly the same way as she did at bedtime. (did I explain that clearly?)
Lovies do help, though we introduced one way earlier (about 4 months?) than was even necessary. I don't think he even cared about the thing really. :) But now, he always sleeps with his two G's (Gund Giraffes).
I was going to recommend ibuprofen for the teething pain (works WAY better than Tylenol for that)...but it sounds like she's not yet 6 months old, which I believe is the starting age for that Rx. You could ask her pedi if she's getting close to 6 mo.
Sorry this was so long, but I tend to get long-winded! ;) I hope something works for you & Maura soon!
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