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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

I need some help / advise

Ok I need some help/advise from you mommies out there!

Here's my problem....
My daughter is 9.5 months old and still wakes up 1-2 times in the middle of the night.
She eats a whole jar of baby food 3 times a day, eats snacks and drinks about 5 8oz bottles so I know when she wakes up it shouldn't be because she's hungry.  She drinks a 8oz bottle before bed and goes to bed at 9.  Some nights she'll wake up at 1am and want a bottle, which I've been giving her and she goes right back to sleep.  I have tried many times just giving her her pacifier and sometimes she'll take it, but most of the time she'll spit it out and start crying.  I don't do the cry it out method, heres why...Keira is still sleeping in our room because she still wakes up, so we dont do the CIO because my hubby has to get up and go to work at 6:30, Keira is suppose to be sharing a room with Kaylee but she's not cause she still wakes up and I don't want her waking Kaylee up.  I would like to get her to sleep through the night so that she can go into her own room and not be in ours.

I know I started a BAD habit by putting her to sleep by rocking her in her bouncer and that your suppose to just put them in their bed while there still awake.  I know shame on me.  I have started putting her down awake for nap time and she has done ok, she'll sit in there and play for about 15 mintues and then fall asleep.  But I'm not worried about nap time cause she 2  2 hour naps.  My problem is getting her to sleep through the night.  I'm new at this cause I never had this problem with Kaylee.  Once Kaylee hit 2 months old she's been sleeping through the night since.  Keira on the other hand has only slept through the night 3 times.  Mommy would like to get a full nights sleep again, I don't even know whats that like anymore!

So for any of you mommies out there that went through the same thing or now someone who went through or your going through it right now, any advise that worked for you would be much appriciated. 

This face is just way to cute for the CIO method...haha


I am up to try anything though, I just need to get the kid to sleep for more than 4-5 hours before waking up to think it's time to eat.  I know I do another bad thing by bringing her into our bed when she gets to upset and patting her back, but when I try to pat her back while she's in bed she like flips out and then starts screaming.  Ahhh I feel like I'm doing all the wrong things and this is my fault that she's not sleeping through the night.  I don't know.

So any help you can give me would be awesome or if there's any books out there that you would recommend.

* * * *

Also while where on the topic of help and advise

I've been with my hubby for 9 years and with having 2 kids our relationship has kinda been pushed to the back burner.  I feel bad because our physical relationship has been pushed way way way back on the burner (sorry if this is TMI), he wants to have sexy time and it's not that I don't enjoy it with him, but when 9:30 rolls around I'm falling asleep in the recliner downstaires after waking up multiple times with Keira the night before and then chasing both girls around all day...having sexy time is the last thing on my mind, I just want to sleep.

His mom takes both the girls on Mondays so that we get a break, it was suppose to be so that we could go out just the two of us to dinner or do something fun for 4 hours while the girls are gone.  Well most of the time we go grocery shopping or he gets home late from work.  So my suggestion was to have date night just the two of us at least 1 Monday a month and if we're able to do it more than once then awesome.

I would like to know from you mommies...
* how do you keep things fun with your hubby?
* what do you do to keep the spark there?

Thank you again for all your help ladies!

9 comments:

  1. Honestly for us the only thing that worked was the CIO method. It was SOO hard for me and I swore I would never do it.

    Not sure what her schedule is, but if you want let me know and I will email you parkers.

    When we started the CIO it was at his middle of the night wakings. I would let him cry. After 5 min I went in gave him his paci and left, let him cry and went back in 10 min later, and so on and so on. I think the first night it took a good hour to hour and a half. Next night 20 min and he has been sleeping through the night since.

    Each baby is so different though, so honestly at the end of the day it will just take testing different things to see what works best for her!!

    I hope you get a good night sleep too!!

    You and the hubs def need to enjoy date nights. We live so far from family and rarely get nights to ourselves so this has been an issue for us too, but you just have to make each moment alone special!!

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  2. Do CIO...seriously, the only way haha.

    We had the same problem b/c Brielle would wake Raya up and all hell would break loose and so I kept putting off CIO.

    Finally I couldn't take it anymore. I actually put the packnplay in the basement (with monitor) away from the other bedrooms and did CIO for one night. That was like a month ago and she's been sleeping 12 hours a night ever since! It only took one night for us (one very hard night).

    I"d suggest sending Kaylee to grandmas or something...maybe hubby can go too. And you stick it out one or two nights with Keira doing CIO. You will be so happy you did!!!

    SHawna

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  3. It sounds like she is waking up just to eat--not to play or just hang out, which is probably better that she isn't wanting to be awake for long. Riley did the same thing when he was about this age. He was waking up a couple times at night just to eat. I was breastfeeding at the time & actually in the process of weaning so I asked my ped what he thought I should do because I just couldn't do the CIO method either.

    He said to give a bottle that is a little weaker than normal the first night when they wake up, then each night continue to make it weaker & weaker. After a couple days it won't be appetizing to her anymore & she won't want to wake up for that "midnight snack".

    It worked for us! Just a suggestion :) Hopefully you will be getting some sleep soon!

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  4. Ok sleep talk...

    We have the same children except opposite years. Carly is a good sleeper like Kaylee and Lidia is like Keira.

    Carly is a good sleeper because I have always been consistent with her. She's never wanted to be rocked to bed so I had no choice but to lay her in bed with milk and/or let her CIO. Lidia on the other hand wants rocked/cuddled to bed or falling asleep to a movie or whatever and still has troubles at night. And I'm partly to blame.

    I would seriously suggest the CIO and be super consistent with it. Depending on your house, figure out a secluded place for her to cry herself to sleep for a few days. The basement, living room, bathroom... Whatever works right? Of course, go in after every 10 minutes and put a paci in until she falls asleep and tell her you love her and leave OR just let her cry. Eventually the crying starts to fade and she falls asleep. Whatever you are comfortable with. 20 minutes feels like an hour but I always kept myself busy and didn't sit there and listen to it or else I would give in or start crying myself. I went outside and had a glass of wine, called a friend, etc. But be consistent and dont give into a bottle or holding her. She learned what she can get away with these last few month, and now she will learn that she cant get away with it anymore if you dont let her.

    And always remember... she will never remember it in the morning! She will still love you!

    Oh and my secret I think I've said before is we sleep with fans in every room. The girls rooms and ours. Blocks out white noise for the girls so they sleep better. And for your room it helps to not hear every whimper or cry but you will still hear screaming/crying if something is wrong!

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  5. Neither of my daughters slept consistently through the night until sometime between 10 months and 1 year. With my last daughter, who was a bottle baby, I'd get up, hand her a bottle and then go back to bed, never pick her up or otherwise engage with her. She kind of weaned herself out of it by the time it was time to take the bottle. I've also heard of either cutting down gradually on the amount of formula in the mid-night bottle or giving water instead. We had a tentative CIO plan, but our daughter was in a separate room so that made it bareable. She could fuss 5-10 minutes and if it wasn't escalating or she self soothed, we didn't go in at all. If she wakes up now (which is rare) and cries for more than 15 minutes, I'll pick her up, rock her about 5 times, tell her night night, and put her back in the crib.

    I've also found that big sisters sleep through A LOT during the middle of the night. Our girls share a room on occasion, and I could get in, get the little and get out without big sister even breaking her breathing pattern.

    Good luck! I am sure you'll find something that works just right for your family!

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  6. Kyla has slept through the night since she was 6 weeks old and just last week she started waking up at least once a night crying. Last night it was 2:30 am. I refused to give her a bottle because I didn't want to start a new routine and let her think that was ok so I held her for awhile to try to calm her down. She was so squirmy, trying to pull my hair, grab my glasses, etc. so I laid her down and let her cry. She only cried for less than 5 minutes and fell back asleep. Not sure why this started recently. It's so hard to hear her cry, but it was the only thing that worked for me. I'm a first time mom so I don't really have good advice, but thought I'd share what I'm going through with Kyla. I'm crossing my fingers that she starts sleeping better for you!

    My hubs and I are in the same boat so thank you for being so honest and brave to post about it. I'm looking forward to reading the advice you get about that :)

    Amy
    Mrs. Mommy

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  7. I'm so lucky with Addie and her sleep but my hubs had a co-worker that was having the same issue with getting her son to sleep through the night. The dr recommended to her to give her little boy water in his bottle for that middle of the night feed so that his body - something about blood sugar changes triggering these babes to think they are hungry when they really don't need that feeding in the middle of the night. In no more than a week her son was sleeping through the night!!!

    I hope that helps:)

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  8. Sophie JUST started sleeping through the night and occasionally wakes up once, albeit rare now. She just kind of did it on her own. Alivia was the same as Kaylee as far as sleeping goes so I have no real advice there.

    We have NO sitters here really and no family to watch the kids as they all live far away. D and I really just have to bite the bullet when it comes to having sexy time and do it tired or not. I used to be just so exhausted and like... COME ON when I was so pooped and he was man handling me at night haha. Now I just let him man handle me and if it turns into sex it does. I really enjoy it with him even if I am sleepy and/or he is sleepy. I used to think I was sacrificing sleep but then I realized that these moments are OUR moments and you never know when you won't get them anymore. I love my husband so much and once we go through that lack of sexy time seriously our relationship is SO MUCH better. Trying to PLAN a time to do it or things like that never worked and ended up being more frustrating than fun. Trying to put a little spontaneity back into our life has definitely spiced things up. I also try to find little fun things to do sexually that will make it a little more exciting for me and him. Nothing crazy haha just little things. Having sex and romance is that hardest things when you have little ones! Trust me...and as you can see from other posts, you are definitely not the only mama out there that has these questions!

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  9. wow, i've been so out of the blogging loop, lately. I'm just updated Avery's blog and thought I would check out what my other blogger friends were doing.
    You know my story on Avery's sleep. She did not start sleeping through the night until she was 9-10 months old. I was a WRECK. Then one night, we stopped everything cold turkey...no more bottle, no more rocking back to sleep once she woke. When she woke up after we put her down for the night (after her bath routine) then we would wait about 5 min. go in there and lay her back down and say night-night and leave. She would cry/whimper and we would wait another 5-10 min before going in again. After about 5 times of going in there, I would lay her down and pat her back until she would get sleepy and then I would leave. Most of the time she started cry-crying (which I couldn't tolerate) near the end, so I would pick her up, and hold her while I stood. Once she was asleep, I put her down.
    It takes a lot of courage to go through this. And I promise, it will help. Once Avery was sleeping through the night, I felt like I got my life back.
    If I remember correctly, your baby sleeps in your room, right? Anyway you can move her into your older daughters room? You'd be surprised what toddlers can sleep through and will help with the sleep training.
    As far as sexy time with the hubs, having the same issues. Usually too tired to even consider it, but I realize it is a very critical part of the relationship and need to address it too. It took me 10 months to even start feeling "normal" down there from giving birth. very traumatic. haha

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