January Sleep Issues

To say we started the new Decade with a bang is an understatement!  As we came home from a wonderful Christmas in Ocean City, the reality of having a baby began to settle in.  The first month Olivia was an angel and such an easy baby.  Well when Dan returned to school the newborn bliss gave way to an overtired, cranky little girl!  Olivia was on a bit of a schedule and by that I mean she was eating every 3 hours and would take about 4 naps daily.  Usually a shorter one in the morning, which allowed me to shower, a longer one in the late morning and a longer one in the afternoon.  She would go to bed around 7:30/8:00.  I was all set to get right back into the swing of things on that Monday morning in January and Livy Loo had a different thought! I rocked her to sleep and put her down in the pack n play, like I have since she was days old, and five minutes later she was wide awake and crying!  Not knowing what else to do I picked her up and tried again...with no success.  I began to get a bit frustrated because she was clearly tired but would not stay asleep when I put her down.  So I called the pediatrician and the nurse at the office told me I should not be rocking her to sleep because she was not learning to fall asleep on her own.  She recommended I should let her cry it out for five minutes.  Well I tried that and honestly that only made her more frantic and me more frustrated!  I was in tears and exhausted when Dan came home and Olivia was a mess.  She was falling asleep while I was feeding her and as a result not getting enough food.  So after a frantic call to Dr. Lancaster on her cell phone she told Dan to take Olivia for a drive to settle her down.  I stayed home to sleep and after an hour she was passed out in her car seat.  Dan came in the room and put her down and she slept in the car seat for 9 hours that night!  It was a LONG day!

The next day was her 2 month check up and we talked to our doctor about what we needed to do.  Her answer was at this age you cannot spoil your child and do whatever it took to get her to sleep.  So after an exhausting week of trying to put her down to sleep, I finally gave in and let her sleep in the swing, the bouncer, any place that would not wake her up when she fell asleep.  It was a LONG week and Dan was not a happy guy coming home.  Several nights I handed her to Dan and went to bed.

We slowly became a bit more rested and went to visit our daycare women, Sharon.  On that day, I realized that Miss Sharon would not be able to rock Livy to sleep every time she need to sleep or hold her all day.  So I became a woman on a mission to help get over this sleeping hump.  I started to read a book that was recommended to me by several mothers, Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Babies. What I realized and started watching for was signs of when Livy was getting tired.  The book also made me realize that she really can only handle about 2 hours of awake time before she needs a nap.  While reading the book we also realized that we were keeping her up too late at night and she needed an earlier bed time!  We were skeptical at first, but tired and that night she slept from 6:30-3:30!  The book also said to keep the routine consistent with puting the child to sleep.  So we now rock her for only 10 minutes, which is less than our 20-25 minutes, and put her in her crib.  There have been a few times we let her cry for 5 minutes and went in to calm her down, but overall it has been much improved and she is a much happier baby!  I have enjoyed this too because she is currently in her own room and sleeping most nights until 3:30/4:00am.  It has been nice because Dan and I have  some time together in the evenings.

Although the first few weeks of January were challenging and emotional we have come out of it as a stronger couple and more confident in taking care of Olivia.