My daughter can sleep for 7-9 hours at a time, but she most often choses to do it from 2-9am. It's fine for me now because I'm home, but I go back to work in a month and I won't be able to function on 3 hours of sleep. Does anyone have a solution that doesn't involve co-sleeping or letting her cry it out? Thanks.
Is she still waking to eat at 2 a.m.? What time does she go to bed? I would suggest waking her for a feeding before you go to bed (10-11) then hold off feeding her again until morning. Does she take a pacifier? Comfort any other nighttime wakings with pacifier, cuddling, however you comfort her. She will eventually realize she is not going to be fed, and she will quit waking.
in 4 weeks she will be 13 weeks old? hmmm..
at some point babies automatically switch their schedules. my son was doing most of his sleeping 1 or 2 until 5 or 6. .. we could then cosleep and get him to sleep until 7 or 8.
crying it out will NEVER work, even though it seems to make baby stop crying, it isnt out of any 'learning to go to sleep' on the baby's part. it is more about 'ok mom and dad dont listen to me or respond to me so why bother crying?'
so AWESOME for listening to your instincts on that! :D
just go about your normal routine. always feed baby when shes hungry, always respond to her cries. you may NEVER get 8 hrs of sleep, or it may be a few years before you do. the things we did with our son seem to have worked so perfectly, i wouldnt trade it for the world, and the child i have now, with his awesome sleep habits.... i really recommend to everyone to try cosleeping. if it doesnt work it doesnt work, hoewver, if it gets baby to sleep, you can always move her into her own bed when shes asleep... what makes this easier is if her bed is in your room.
babies are NOT conditioned to sleep. mostly as protection - they will not sleep long hours at a time - be glad of this as frequent waking prevents SIDS. also, their tummies are tiny, and empty quickly, however a full feeding might keep her awake for a little bit because digestion is disrupting, however, if you are nursing, the stuff in breastmilk helps babies sleep... anyway...
around 12 weeks old she should start waking up more often during the day, and will POP into a better sleep routine. start the bath (not every night), reading a book, do a prayer if you wish, sing lullabyes, and do your thing. one thing that also helped our son is white noise white noise white noise. :P
we got a cd, 'for crying out loud' - i got it online... its fantastic. it has 8 tracks of different white noises on it, you can use the one that your baby prefers. our son wanted the vacuum cleaner - we ran our real vacuum for 2 months before we found the cd! now we run it every night and it really helps us all sleep because it blocks out the other sounds that dont matter :P my husband is a VERY light sleeper and every noise wakes him up...
anyway... another thing that will help is a night light....
or classical music....
anyway, i hope something ive suggested helps...
otherwise, try checking out www.askdrsears.com....
and trust yourself. youve got the instincts for your baby, not me ! :D good luck!
It might take a few weeks to move her over to a more agreeable schedule, but I did it with my son. The good news is, she's capable of sleeping for 7 hours, so you just need to tweak what 7 hours those are.
A good first step would be not letting her sleep until 9:00 a.m. Even if she goes to bed at 2:00 a.m., get her up at the time you're going to be getting up when you go back to work, and keep her up for as long as possible before her first nap of the day.
My rule for daytime naps when my son was that age was no naps longer than 3 hours, and he had to be awake the 2 hours before bedtime.
So then, you can start putting her to bed at night a little early. Eventually, her 7 hours will be more like 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m., or whatever you need them to be.
If she does wake at night, don't talk to her, keep the lights off, and feed her and change her diaper if necessary. During the day, keep the room bright and listen to music.
Obviously when you start this, you are going to get short-changed on sleep at first, but since you're still on maternity leave, nap when she naps! That was the best advice I ever got as a new mom--the laundry and dishes can wait!
You've already had a lot of good advice. I would echo anything related to getting your baby on a schedule that works for you - particularly wake/sleep time and feeding times.
In addition to "Healthy Sleep Habits," I would recommend "Babywise." I frequent a Babywise blog that often includes helpful troubleshooting (babywise.blogspot.com); however, Babywise does advocate CIO.
Along with a schedule (from Babywise, started early on...maybe at 6 weeks? focusing on the morning wake-up time), my husband and I started putting our daughter to bed awake but in the crib around ~10-12weeks. She would cry, but we would give her the pacifier, keep a hand on her and sit by the crib until she fell asleep. Yes - crying was involved, but we were there with her and it wasn't too bad. Then, lucky for us, she discovered her thumb. Now, we put her down (4mos old), she may whimper a bit until she finds her thumb, but then she if off to sleep in ~15min. She has been sleeping 10-11 hrs since 13 weeks.
Good Luck!
I have a 3mo.old and we've done a bit of tweaking with her schedule as well. I wanted her to sleep longer in the mornings. I just fed her in bed with me, still kept the room dark and didn't do alot of talking so she got the point.
You could try waking your baby up at what time you'll have to for daycare or work now so somewhat of a schedule comes into place.
Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child is the best sleep book out there. She is too young to cry it out. I used that book and my son was sleeping from 6-6:30 or 7 every night.
If you get a sleep book it will you help you out with a schedule and techniques of shifting the schedule. We use Good Night, Sleep Tight by Kim West. She is known as the Sleep Lady. Her approach is gentle and isn't a cry it out method. The book goes all the way up to age 5 and is sectioned off by age. So, you will know exactly how much sleep they need at each age. But your baby is still pretty little so it might be hard to shift it. You will probably be able to get it somewhere around 10 pm. The book is a quick read because it is broken up into sections by age. It has worked wonders on our two kids!
Read Night Time Parenting by Dr Sears, it saved our lives when our daughter was newborn. AskDrSears.com is wonderful too.
Keep your baby close and take naps with her too, to rest up.
Good Luck!
J.
