Sleepless in Columbus

A couple weeks into my attempt to get Maddie sleeping at night. This is what I can say: we've had some pretty long nights. It has not been as easy or successful as I thought it would be. There are small milestones, such as the fact that she is sleeping in her own bed now and not with me. And she now sleeps in three hour spurts, most of the time. This is something that I would take, if it were more regular.

The first couple of nights were brutal. She would wake up at the two hour mark and cry. I would let her cry for a bit and then go in to comfort her, which would just upset her more, because she didn't want me, she wanted booby. She ended up in hysterics when she didn't get what she wanted. So I thought it'd be better to let her sort this out on her own. The third night I let her cry and she actually ended up crying less than when I was going in there. The problem was that she would soothe herself back to sleep just to wake up thirty minutes later. So I have actually been up more than before when I was feeding her every two hours. Although we have made progress and I can go in and rock her back to sleep.

Trying to pay attention to the crying, I think I have figured out when she is hungry and when she just needs to be soothed. It still seems as though she really is hungry every three hours, which I can handle. It's an hour more, right? So on a good night I will put her to bed at 9pm and she will get up at 12am and 3am to eat. Since day one, she has gotten up at 5am and it's not any different now. So at 5am every morning she wakes up and I just bring her back to bed with me where she instantly falls back asleep until 6am to eat again. She is up for the day at 7am. This is a good night. This doesn't always happen. In fact, it doesn't usually happen. We have had several nights where she gets up every hour. A couple nights ago we gave her a bottle for her last feeding thinking she wasn't eating enough. The first night she slept beautifully (see "a good night") but then last night was horrible again. Which on a side note, this is a good thing that she's actually taking a bottle now, even if it's only from me. I don't know why she won't sleep. I can't figure it out. Maybe it's her teeth?

So it is still a work in progress. I know it won't be like this forever, but it has definitely lasted longer than I had anticipated. But as she approaches the six month mark, I know we are at least on the down hill slope (because I figure she has to be sleeping through the night at a year old, right? Say yes!).