My mind is all over the place today, so I thought I would write a random post and include all of my mind's wanderings.
- First of all, we are all back to normal and feeling healthy! Thank you Lord for the blessing of health. The house has finally been put back together and life has resumed as it was before.
- Hannah will be 3 months old on Friday (just 2 days away!). Hard to believe, but my little peanut will no longer be a newborn. She will move on to the infant stage. 3 months brings changes to her schedule. Up until now her schedule has been the 6, 10, 2, 6, 10 feeding schedule. She has always napped between the 6am and 10am feeding and the 2pm and 6pm feeding. This schedule has worked GREAT for us! What changes at 3 months is her bedtime. Instead of keeping her up until 10pm, we will start putting her down earlier. I'm just not sure how this is going to work. Essentially the schedule stays the same, just more sleep....hmmm?! I'm just not sure how to go about doing this. Dr. Denmark (the pediatrician whose book we have followed since day 1) recommends feeding at 6pm and putting them to bed soon after. Then doing a dream feed at 10pm (where you go in and feed them and put them right back down, barely waking them up). Then after a month you drop that dream feed and they are supposed to sleep straight through til morning. Yeah right?! I just don't see that happening?! Any suggestions??
- Brian's parents and sister are coming into town on Friday! YEAH!! We LOVE having family come visit. It will be especially fun because Hannah will be starting rice cereal when they are here. Let the fun begin! :-)
- We had a scary night last night. Since I am trying to figure out this whole new schedule thing, I am toying around with different options. I decided to feed her a little earlier than usual last night (8:45pm) and put her down. She did great until she woke up at 10:30 crying. I should have just let her keep sleeping, but my confusion about the new schedule made me get her up to do a "dream feed" (even though she was definitely not asleep). She ate a full feeding but spit up a bunch of it after we finished. After burping her I put her back down and she fussed for a minute, but quickly found her fingers to suck on. Then I heard a loud barf sound and ran into her room to clean it up. She was choking! She has sucked in a lot of spit up through her nose and was trying to cough it out. I was frantic! I screamed for Brian and he came running up the stairs. We grabbed the suction bulb and cleaned out her nose, but she was still struggling to catch her breath and had a bright red face. It took her a few minutes to clear it all out and then she was fine. But it sure scared me! We finally put her back down (after lots of snuggles) and she fell asleep with just a little fussing and slept til morning. Ugh....what a scary night! I don't think I'm a fan of the "dream feed".
- Hannah is having a very fitful nap today. She fell asleep pretty well, but then after about 45 minutes she started screaming. She did this on and off for about an hour. I kept going in to check on her and she wasn't actually awake, just fussing and crying in her sleep. I didn't know what was wrong, so I tried putting a blanket over her...maybe she's cold?? (Even though it's really hot in our house upstairs). I tried taking the blanket off..maybe she's hot?? I tried moving the fan to a better position so she wouldn't be hot. I tried feeling her diaper to see if it was really wet (she is napping in cloth...so might be?!) But I just couldn't figure it out. She finally was quite for about 30 minutes straight until she started crying again. This time she was awake (head was popping up) so I took the blanket off (again) and popped a paci in her mouth (something I really don't like to do). But now she is back down and sleeping soundly. So I guess a paci every once in a while is okay...but I definitely don't want to start a habit. Any ideas on why she might be crying in her sleep like this??
- Hannah has developed a new habit. She loves to suck on her right index finger knuckle and rub the back of her head with her left hand. It's so cute. She does this when she is awake and when she's asleep. I guess it's soothing to her to rub her head? Too funny!
- We are still doing Cry It Out and it's getting better (shorter crying periods) but she is still crying for almost every nap and bedtime. It's so frustrating! I thought she would have gotten it by now and no longer cry. Nope! We started officially letting her CIO on April 15th, so almost 2 months ago. Anyone else have a baby that took this long to learn to fall asleep without crying? Is she always going to cry herself to sleep? I have seen progress, but I yearn for the day that she goes down without any fussing!!
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Not to depress you, but at 2, there are still nights Ellie cries herself to sleep (of course now it's because she wants to play instead of sleep). It does get better, be patient! I never did a dream feed. I figured, if she's hungry, she'll wake up. Otherwise, I'm letting us all get some sleep! Ellie was about 3 months when she started sleeping all the way through the night.
ReplyDeleteI would recommend slowly changing her schedule and feeding her around 7-8 and putting her down afterwards. Kaelyn goes down around then and is asleep til anywhere between 6-8 every morning. On nights she doesnt get to sleep until 10-12, she'll usually make up for it and sleep in until around 10.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to CIO, we were told not to allow that until 4 months old. I dunno if y'all started it too early and that could partially be a problem? I'm not an expert, but with Kaelyn, we plan on starting around 4 months. We have no problems with her crying herself to sleep, but when she is fighting sleep, we lay her in a quiet place or rock her. She tends to go out like a light doing either one of those things. I think it may have to do with a comfort factor? Or potentially needing some extra cuddling? I'm not real sure. Some kids just need that extra cuddling. Kaelyn has always been a cuddler, ever since the day she was born. She HATED the bassinette and wanted to be held and cuddled. Even the nurses ended up having to hold her during the night. We personally have no problem with holding her alot as its comforting to her and helps with bonding. She is still very independent and is not in constant need of us or attention, but when she gets sleepy or hungry, thats when she wants the attention and cuddles... Wish I had more information.. If I can think of anything or find any new info on CIO, I'll let you know!