It has been about a month now since we started our bedtime routine, and now we are ready for the next step which is to give up the swaddle. Juniper can easily roll over now, and she does so regularly, therefore it isn't really safe to continue to swaddle her. On Friday while trying to go down for a nap she seemed to prefer being unswaddled, and so Friday night we put her in the sleep sack (arms free) for the night. It was a challenging night for us parents, because she woke up a lot. However, she also woke up a lot Thursday night when she was swaddled, so I'm not sure what the reason is. This whole week it has been hard for her to sleep, partially because she had a slight fever for a couple days in reaction to a vaccination. The entire last month sleeping hasn't been great, which we figured was because of the two teeth that came in. Last week seemed to be better, where she was only waking up about twice a night. This week it has been more like 5 times a night.
Today we went to a free Sleep Workshop by Sara Cohen of Sleepy Family. It was reassuring to hear the stories of the other parents there. One of the tips the teacher gave us is to expect times of regression because progress isn't linear. That is helpful because there have been many nights when Juniper slept great and I optimistically think that she will sleep that well from then on. Not so! Also, the teacher said that when you make a change it takes about 10 days for the baby to adjust. She suggested for us that we start to teach Juniper to go to sleep on her own by sitting next to her bassinet while she is in there and sleepy, and wait with her until she falls asleep. She will probably cry and it could take up to an hour. She said a good time to start trying this is for her morning nap. I can't imagine doing that at this point. It takes so much patience to be with her while she cries. Anyway, for now I don't feel ready to "sleep train" her. For now we will work on getting her used to being unswaddled. We are still using a pacifier, and I am afraid that we are starting to depend on it too much to get her to sleep. But it seems like the alternative is to listen to a lot of crying.
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3 comments:
Sleep training will involve listening to alot of crying no matter when you do it. Since Juni is 5 months are you giving her any solid foods yet? My mom recommended to us to give a feeding of solid foods before bed since they are thicker than milk. And everyone sleeps better on a full tummy! Of course you don't want her to be too tired when you are trying something as challenging at eating solid foods. Guess none of this is helpful advice. Just take it one day at a time. ktb
Thanks, Karen. We aren't giving solid foods yet. We'll probably wait until she's 6 months old for that. And yes, hopefully once she's eating solids it will improve her sleep. Last night was a little better--she woke up every 2 or 3 hours instead of every hour. : ) Progress!
the sleep regressions are hard...some nights he will sleep for six hours and some nights he is up every hour. those nights are the nights when I think about sleep training, but I'm not ready yet.
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