Help, I messed up my baby! (sleep)

[HouseofWool]

Has she found her thumb yet?

[MsSassyBaskets]

She has found her thumb, but she doesn't suck it. Sometimes she chews on it but she doesn't use it to self soothe.

So for those of you saying I don't have to give up the pacifier, don't have to give up nursing at night, etc. What the heck do I do, and what is the shuffle for? She's waking repeatedly in the night and those are the things I have to do to get her back to sleep. Pacifier a couple times, nurse a couple times. Sorry, I'm just not getting it.

[OrionGrad]

It's basically comforting your baby while she's in the crib, with either your voice or patting. Each night you move further back until you're out of the room. If they wake at night, you do the same routine. (In my case, I still did a dream feed at 9, but kept with the plan the rest of the time.) There is crying, but you're with her the whole time. Obviously there's more to it than that, but that's my 30 second synopsis.

[ladymoreta]

You may need to drop the pacifier. I was just trying to suggest an alternative if she can learn to replace it herself in the near future. Since she's not there yet, it's probably best to get rid of it.

The shuffle is for babies who can't fall asleep without you there. Since she's falling asleep on her own already, it's not something you need to do.

If she's not wanting to nurse back to sleep, but actually hungry, you just have to tough those out until she can make it all night without being hungry. You can switch to formula overnight. That helped DD because she didn't like it as well. She'd eat it only if she was actually hungry.

[MsSassyBaskets]

Yeah, I guess that's my dilemma. She sleeps well with the pacifier, only I have to go in there multiple times a night and give it back. From my experience the few times I've even put her down briefly while I ran to get a pacifier from downstairs, she would be hysterical if I took it away. Then I really would need the shuffle, and a strong drink.

[MsSassyBaskets]

Well, I haven't had a chance to try anything serious yet, I was too worn out to be disciplined this weekend... But she only woke up once last night!!! I feel almost human.

That theory about babies pushing you right to the brink and then pulling back... Well, I think I was over the brink. But I've managed to climb back up for today.

[MsSassyBaskets]

She just slept through the night. I now throw up my hands in exasperation and vow to never try to fix my baby again. She just went from waking 4-5 times a night to sleeping through the night in the course of about 3 days. She also rolled back to front yesterday. "OK mom, now that I've got that figured out, I'm going to rest!"

[ladymoreta]

LOL, that's pretty much it. They will keep you on your toes!

[scrub-jay]

Sleep always went to hell right before some sort of developmental jump/growth for both of mine. It's frustrating, but at least I finally spotted the pattern.

[MsSassyBaskets]

It's been 7 whole weeks of really bad sleep regression/disturbance so I kind of figured it was just habit by now. That was one holy fucking whopper of a regression. Who knows, she'll probably be back at it tonight, but at least I've hit the reset button and I'm not delusional and hallucinating from sleep deprivation.

[Thirteen]

Both of mine always had crappy sleep before:
1) Teeth coming in
2) Developmental milestones (especially rolling over and crawling)

Blarg! You are a mommy warrior for sure!


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[MrsC]

C is the same way with milestones and teething. They always impact his sleep. There's a book called the Wonder Weeks that goes through developmental milestones. It really helped me to spot new things and understand what he was going through.
I hope she keeps sleeping through the night!

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[MsSassyBaskets]

Well, she went right back to the night wakings again until last night, she slept til 5 am again. It might have something to do with the fact that she had a bottle at 5:30, solids at 6:30, and breastfed a little more at 7:30 then went to bed. It annoyed me that daycare didn't get to her 3rd bottle of the day, so I had to give it to her as soon as we got home, but it made for a very full baby at bedtime! Also, we have a tooth. She chomped on my knuckle yesterday and I could feel the sharp edge of a bottom incisor coming through. So I'm really hoping this phase is beginning to pass. And she's almost 7 months so I'm sure we'll just hit another phase soon enough...

[ladymoreta]

Yay little tooth! All bets are off with sleep when they're coming in, and it seems like they teeth constantly... Don't be afraid to use Tylenol or Motrin even if you're not completely sure. If it helps, it's probably a tooth.