"She needs to cry it out"
"Babies cry"
"Just let her cry"
These are just a few of the things that other parents have told me about getting Emma to sleep better at night. Yes I understand that babies cry, that is the only way they can communicate with us. But I don't think letting them cry for the sake of crying just because they wake up is the right answer for us.
We tried letting Emma 'cry it out' when she would wake up at night, all 6 or 7 times. This resulted in one very over tired baby and 2 over tired parents. When I don't get enough sleep I'm irritable, quick to anger, frustrated, stressed, on the verge of getting a migraine, on the verge of constant tears and pretty darn functionless. I'm a hot mess.
I told Scott yesterday that what we were doing or trying to do was not working. We had to find some way better to do this. I can't live like this.
We stopped doing CIO last night. We got little Emma ready for bed a little before 7:30 and with about 30 minutes of some pretty hard crying because she was over tired she fell asleep. While she was crying we were not just ignoring her either. We made sure to help her get her brain to slow down. So at 8 she finally calmed down enough that she could fall asleep.
She slept until about 11. We let her fuss for about 5 minutes, not screaming crying, and then Scott went in and calmed her down in about 5 minutes and she was asleep for another hour or so.
She woke up again at about 1:30AM I think. We did the same thing we did at 11 only after 5 minutes of calming not working I went in and nursed her. She was hungry and ate at a pretty good clip for about 6 minutes. As soon as she switched to comfort nursing I put her back into her crib and she slept for another 3 hours.
She woke up again at about 3:30. Again we went through the routine that Scott did earlier. I nursed her again after 5 minutes of soothing not working. She ate again pretty good for 4 minutes or so and, again, when she switched to comfort nursing I put her back into her crib and she slept for another 2 hours.
I was up to get ready for work at 5AM, a miracle, I heard her fuss a little bit but she didn't fully wake up so she must have been sleep fussing because she didn't keep going. She woke up again at 6AM and Scott went in and got her to go back to sleep until 6:30 where she woke up and wanted to eat again.
After that she was up for the day. I think we both got more sleep that way then we have been the past 5 nights or so. And today I feel human.
Scott's going to pay more attention to when Emma shows signs of being sleepy during the day to start getting her into a nap routine. And we're going to go through the same routine (only longer) at bed time to get her ready for bed.
I think for bedtime we're going to start by getting her ready for bed, getting her in her pajamas and night time diaper.
Then I'll nurse her for her last feeding of the day.
Then we're going to read her a book or too, keeping things calm.
We did these things last night but little girl was too over tired for it to be really effective.
If we can get her to go to sleep when she's tired instead of waiting until she's over tired all three of us should have a much much better nights sleep!