Last night was a rough night. Between 9pm and 4:30am I got only about 90 minutes of sleep. I was determined not to pass her off to Paul at all in light of really getting to the last minute on his thesis. At 4:30 I decided to let her cry herself to sleep and thankfully after 5 minutes of screaming she fell asleep and then slept until 8:00am. She's had a rough time napping today as well unless she's napping on me she doesn't want to sleep in either the pack n play or crib. I tried letting her cry herself to sleep earlier and even that didn't work, but I just tried it again a little bit ago and this time it worked and finally for the first time today she is napping someplace other than on Mommy (however this time she only slept 20 minutes so it wasn'y really that succesful). Not that I don't like cuddling with her, but I don't think ALL naps should be on me! I had asked Dr. M about whether to let her cry herself to sleep a couple of weeks ago, and Dr. M said not to do that at this age. So that's why I had been very hesitant to let her cry. Ever since the time in the NICU when they were so cautious about how many calories she was burning, I have been paranoid about letting her cry. Well if I had to do it over again (last night) I would have let her cry herself to sleep earlier in the night. Of course I would only do that if I knew she had a clean diaper and her belly was full. So my question today is, how long do you let a 4 week old cry? I was comfortable letting her cry for 5 minutes (of course I don't enjoy listening to the little gal scream but I mean I thought it was okay for her to cry that long). Anyone know a good rule of thumb in terms of how long to let her cry? Once I know for sure we are out of the woods as far as her weight goes it will be easier to let her cry without worrying about how many calories she's burning. She gets weighed again on Friday.
To answer a few questions posed in the comments of other posts. No, I never got any stretch marks and my belly button never popped out. Of course it probably helped that I gave birth at 36w. It is nice to have my belly button back to normal. Nadia's is still definitely an outie though! As for nursing in public, I don't plan to do that but more just wanted something to use when I am at home and say my father-in-law or someone like that is here while I need to nurse her. Latching on at times is still a MAJOR ordeal (without a shield). Sometimes it takes quite a long time, and there is no way a regular blanket would work. It would definitely fall off!!! Sometimes I just want to throw the towel in when it comes to b/fing, but I know it's best for her plus a lot cheaper than formula.
2 comments:
Ruth, just read about the buyer backing out... gosh, this is really upsetting! (I am getting upset, and I am not even the one selling the house, LOL!) So this now means that you guys are not going to buy the new house? (maybe you already wrote about it in an earlier post and I missed it).
As for crying out to sleep, I did not let my kids do it until they were 3-4 months old. But eventually I had to do it with Jaco because no matter how hard I tried he just did not fall asleep. Sometimes if they get overstimulated they have a harder time falling asleep, could that be the case with Nadia? before 3 months old I used to rock the kids to sleep, or put them on the swing. Rocking can turn out to be overstimulating too, for some children, so you might try and see what happens. I hardly ever let them sleep with me (mostly because I had to deal with two children with different schedules) but if you are in favor of attached parenting then there is nothing wrong with it. It really depends on what you feel more comfortable with. As for the tough nights, I don't want to sound discouraging but I have been seriously sleep deprived for the first 18 months and even now I would feel really tired around 3pm. Unfortunately I became imsomniac during the first 18 months of the babies' lives so that made things worse (i.e. if I had to wake up at 2am for a feeding etc then I would not be able to fall back to sleep, and I became so stressed out that I would go to sleep in the evening and would not even be able to fall asleep for hours). Hopefully you won't have such problem and you will start feeling better earlier. As you already found out, a night with better sleep is not enough to recover, but it certainly is a step in the right direction :-)
Ruth - I've hesitated to throw my opinion into the mix because it appears, from your posts, that we did things a bit differently with our kids. Plus, it's been six years since we had an infant in our house. But I hate to see you getting so little sleep. With that said, we did let our kids cry themselves to sleep. I'm not talking hours or anything like that - maybe 15-20 minutes? I know it's always hard to sit there and listen to them crying but I always made sure they were well fed, diapered and all their needs were met before letting them cry. I've always heard that there's nothing wrong with letting babies cry and tried to look at the big picture instead of focusing on the moment. The blessing for us in using this approach was that all three of our kids were sleeping through the night (8 hours) by the time they were eight weeks old. I know at this point that probably sounds crazy or far-fetched, but it's true. I'm one who does not function without decent sleep so we had to find a way that worked for us. We also tried to get them sleeping in their own cribs/bassinets as early on as we could. They all probably slept with us for a few nights after getting home from the hospital, just for survival's sake, but after that we tried to get them used to sleeping on their own. You can understand why Nadia would prefer napping on you rather than her bed and as long as you don't mind that arrangement, then go with it. However, given time, she will adjust to sleeping in her bed instead - it just might take a bit of time and more crying.
Okay, I guess that's all of my two cents worth. Take it for what it's worth. I'm praying for you - I know that these early weeks and months can be so difficult. But it sounds like you're handling it all wonderfully. Just trust your instincts!
Post a Comment