We in the Perryman household are about to undergo some major changes. No, I'm not pregnant! Well, I COULD be since I haven't been very consistent in remembering to take my pill at the right time everyday...but I digress...
After feeling reaching a sort of breaking point this week with my frustration, stress and sleep depravation, we've come to the conclusion that somethings' got to change around here. We are definitely NOT living the way we should be. By that I don't mean that we are living "in sin" like you would think when you hear people say they aren't living the way they should. What I mean is that we have no system to keep the house clean, we are behind on most bills (due to our disorganization), we have had to eat out more than usual b/c I hadn't grocery shopped (laziness on my part), our poor daughter has no routine to speak of so she doesn't sleep well through the night and has been sleeping with us, we are sleep-deprived due to her being in our beds, I am heavier than I've ever been (without being pregnant) and I just feel drained and empty an frustrated with myself and my life.
SOOOOOOO....this prompted us to sit and discuss these things and come up with a game plan.
Plan #1 was to get Brooklyn trained to sleep in her room. Without us getting sleep each night, everything seems dismal. A good night's sleep makes things much easier to deal with the next day. So we began that tonight. In fact, I'm sitting in her room, in the rocker, typing this post, as she sleeps semi-soundly. She has woken up a couple of times with her "sleep-whining" that she has been doing lately, but she has stayed asleep, which is our goal. It wasn't easy getting her down though. We came up with our bedtime routine which is a very quick bath, then I play her Baby Einstein CD while I rock with her and talk to her and give her a bottle and let her wind down. Then when she starts getting groggy, I put her in the crib with her bunny-blanket and let the CD play until it's done. When I put her down, all her sleepyness left her, of course and she wanted to play. I stood firm and walked out and set my timer to 3 minutes. She didn't really cry in those first three minutes. She was still interested in moving around her crib. I thought "This won't be so bad afterall". Boy was I wrong. After about minute 7, all "you know what" broke loose and she started crying. Not just crying but screaming at the top of her lungs and getting super hysterical. Of course, she was standing up in her crib every time we came in to console her. Our times were 3 minutes, then 5, then 6, then 7 and I stayed at 7 the last several times. Every time we went in, we would lay her back down, give her a paci, lay her bunny back in her arms and cover her back up with her regular blanket. She was still hysterically crying and her whole body was shaking with her cries. After about 40 minutes of this, I gave in and rocked her some more and she went to sleep in less than 5 minutes (not without a little crying though). I know, I can't cave in every night. I promise I won't tomorrow night though. It was just so painful to see how distraught she was at being left alone. Now, I'm glad to say that she seems to be in a very deep sleep in her crib. My prayer is that she sleeps through the night without waking up 4 times. I'm hoping that since she's not in bed with us, there won't be as much to wake her up (i.e. our own moving around and turning over in bed wakes her up sometimes).
Since there are so many plans and a lot of details to each one, I'm going to devote an entire post to each of them and try to post them over the next several days. I'll also keep you updated as to how Plan #1 is going! We'll call this: Mission Impossible: the FULL night of sleep!
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4 comments:
You CAN do it! I promise. We started this when Cooper was about 6 months old and within 3 nights or so, he was going down without crying. And, unless we've had a crazy day where he hasn't napped enough and is overtired at bedtime, he goes right down without crying every night. With the middle of the night crying, Keith used to force me to stay still to keep me from running at every whimper. I would wait 5 minutes to see if he would go back to sleep and if he didn't, then I would go in and make sure he was in a comfortable position, wasn't too hot or cold and had his paci. I hope she starts sleeping amazingly for you! Sleep deprivation is SOOO hard and it makes everything 100 times worse. Good luck! I'll be praying for you guys and keep us updated on how it's going!
Hang in there Steph. Keep your same routine every night and I think she'll respond to that.
Good luck Steph! Brooklyn sounds like the kind of baby that does better with a routine. Do mom and dad have her on a regular napping schedule during the day too? When Katelyn was a baby she was in daycare but, boy, they were super strict with schedules and she ate and napped at the same time EVERY DAY. Then once we got home I had her on a strict schedule at home too. Especially a bedtime one.
It's tough now but in the long run you will be happy you did it
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