The most amazing thing happened after the night I fell asleep to M's crying...
The next night she was up in the middle of the night again, getting more and more wound up wanting to play. After 1.5 hours of this, around 2am, I sat her down in her crib, kissed her forehead and told her that it was time to go to sleep, She fussed, but not very sincerely, for 3 minutes. She then laid down and cooed at her stuffed froggy for about an hour and then fell asleep.
The next night she was getting all hyper as I was trying to put her to bed, so I tried the same thing. Literally sat her in her crib upright (she was too awake to lay down), kissed her forehead and wished her a good night. You know what? she fussed for about 10 seconds as I walked out the room but then went to sleep. It has been like that every night since. This weekend I tried it with naps. It worked! She was still awake, I kissed her forehead and said "sweet dreams" and walked out of the room. After a few seconds of half-hearted protest she quietly coos at her toys or goes right to sleep. And then when she wakes up she just hangs out cooing at her toys. I have gone in to "wake" her up every time...
Crazy. Seriously weirds me out. But man, oh, man, is this wonderful!
I feel so incredibly fortunate that we seem to have gotten here with very very minimal crying-it-out pain.
Now, anyone have tips on how to get her to not wake up at 1am, 3am, and 5am? me is so, so, so, tired.
BTW, that letter of rec is done and I am now starting to read one of those dissertations...
It is so nice when you can just put them down to sleep...I loved it when we got to that point. Around this age we had to CIO with Little T because otherwise she just wanted to be with us. It was so hard but paid off in the end.
ReplyDeleteWhat is she doing when she wakes up at 1, 3, and 5? Is she still eating at those times or does she just want to be with you? Is this a new thing or something that she stuck with after she stopped eating at those times? Did the top teeth come in? Have you tried to let her cry for a bit during these times? When is her last feeding before bedtime?
Little T was starting to feel separation anxiety around 8-9 months, especially at night. We would go in there and then had to break that habit after the fact because she knew we weren't with her and wanted us to be so she was waking up just to be with us. We had to CIO some during this time until she went back to sleeping through the night. She also hit a growth spurt around 9 months and was hungry in the middle of the night suddenly but that only lasted a couple of nights. This was also when she did her first baby sign letting us know she was hungry.
Wow. N. still wakes up from her naps too early ... I wish the "sweet dreams" approach worked all the time here, too! My pediatrician says that crying it out at night helps ... she just wakes up after a cycle and needs to learn to self-soothe back into a deeper sleep.
ReplyDeleteGood for you!
ReplyDeleteUnless Mads really seems famished or poopy when she wakes up in the middle of the night, I would leave her to try and go back to sleep. If she's disturbing your sleep with her fussing, perhaps move her to her own room?