Hello! Hey, it’s Me.

Delaney’s Sleep Story, Part 2

Originally written March 8, 2006

About a month ago, we bought Laney a new twin bed with a mattress similar to our bed. We knew that the crib was never going to be an option, so we packed it away into the attic. We had a difficult set back after a long, 8 day stomach bug that landed her in the hospital with IV fluids; during that period, I would nurse her whenever she woke for the fluids, regardless of the time. Prior to her sickness, she was sleeping approximately 1.5-2 hours for the first stretch, and then sleeping from about 10 p.m.-4 a.m. for the most part with 0-1 wake-ups. She resettled quickly without nursing. From about 4 a.m. until up for the day, she woke frequently and nursed.

After her sickness, she had a very difficult time sleeping for quite a while. We moved her to her new bed approximately 2 weeks after getting better. She took very well to her new bed, much to our surprise! She did continue to wake frequently, and we had a couple of difficult nights readjusting to not nursing through the night. When she woke in the night, I would go to her bedside and pat her to sleep. She would scream out when I touched her before rolling over and quickly falling back to sleep. It was like I made her very angry when I “interfered” with her sleep. I would sleep with her and nurse frequently from about 4:30 a.m. until she was up for the day.

About a week and a half ago, I decided to try a new tactic since it seemed that by walking over to her to “resettle” her, I would only wake her more. I decided to wait approximately 3-5 minutes unless her crying/fussing escalated above a whimper or whine. The first night was quite difficult! It took all my strength not to jump up immediately, and I spent most of the night awake waiting for her to wake. But the first time she woke, she quickly resettled in about 3 minutes! That first night was difficult (more for me than her!), but generally after 3 minutes of whimpering, she was asleep! My goal was to try to extend our “no-nursing” period until 6 a.m., but after having a difficult time between 4 a.m.-5:30 a.m. (waking approximately every 30-45 minute, the 3^rd time in 1.5 hour being at 5:30 a.m.) the first night, I nursed her back to sleep and nursed her as frequently as she needed until morning. We made it as long as we could for a few nights, but generally if she woke multiple times within a short period, I’d resettle her with nursing. However, each night was progressively better.

After a week, she is doing remarkably well! We are very pleased with her current sleep situation. She is sleeping again from approximately 10 p.m. until around 5:30 or 6 a.m. with one or two wake-ups. She resettles very quickly on her own during that period. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about our new routine, which has helped. We’ve also talked extensively about “milkies sleeping” until daylight. I do sleep with her in the morning hours and nurse her as often as she’d like between 6 a.m. and up for the day. She has extended her first stretch of sleep from about 1 hour to about 2-2.5 hours! Her last nursing for the evening “until daylight” is that first wake up. But the longer she sleeps during that first stretch, the more we will phase out that last nursing.

Part three will entail going to sleep. She still has a very difficult time going to sleep and needs lots of intervention. We hope to help her learn to fall asleep on her own for the most part. We’ve been working on it gently lately, and daddy is taking a lot of special care during the “going-to-sleep” time after she finishes nursing. I’m comfortable with nursing her “to sleep” for as long as necessary, but she doesn’t actually nurse to sleep. She nurses until she’s relaxed and comfortable, but daddy takes over afterwards. We’d like to allow her to nurse until drowsy and comfortable, and then ease into sleep with less and less intervention.

What I’ve learned: I learned during the night-weaning process that I spent a lot of time nursing a sleeping child. I most recently learned that “waking up” isn’t necessarily waking up. She would become so upset when I went over to her to soothe her back to sleep; after a few nights, I realized that I was actually waking her up, which was really upsetting her!