It used to be that Maddie would show signs of tiredness and we would wind down some and then put her down mostly awake.Recently, she's started resisting sleep. She cries if we put her down to sleep and sounds like we're torturing her. So of course we pick her back up and either give up if it's a nap or try again later. Also, she usually doesn't sleep much with her Nanny during the day which means she can be very fussy in the few hours each night that I get to see her. This is not ideal.
I've been reading quite a bit about sleep and about how about this age they get separation anxiety and still don't have object permanence. So they don't want to be away from you (in their crib before they fall asleep) and they don't actually know that you haven't disappeared when they can't see you. It's kind of weird reality to exist in if you think about it. One of the other things I've run across is how bad it is for kids to not really sleep enough. It affects all sorts of things, not to mention that they're kind of fussy and short fused.
A couple days ago I put Maddie down for a nap and she was clearly tired. She cried and was so upset. I tried to comfort her without picking her up and then I did pick her up and tried winding her down again. That was terrible and didn't work at all. It just made her cry more when I did put her down. My honey pot was around and he didn't like that she was upset and picked her up and basically did the same things. Then he had a class to go to and left me with her after it being an hour or so of this terrible situation. So I decided to try some of the stuff I've read in this pretty decent sleep book.
I wound her down again, explaining what we were doing. Then I put her in her crib and left the room knowing that I would check in every 5 minutes. That was a pretty terrible 5 minutes. I went to check in with her and left again and she was asleep one minute later. 6 minutes total.
Today, we also had some rough naps. I guess rough is relative when I have an associate that said their baby cried for 90 minutes the first time. I've started doing some of the things in there which basically equate to sleep training. I've only done it for naps. Basically I wind her down and then put her in her crib and just let her cry. I check in every 5 minutes. The first time I did this she sounded so upset for several minutes, but she did go to sleep within 6 minutes.
1 comment:
are you using the Ferber method? We did this, and it worked great! Some people think it is mean, but it worked for us (at night, NOT naps) in three nights. Now she is a pretty good sleeper and usually sleeps through the night. It is better for all of us when the little one sleeps enough. Good luck! Sleep is really tricky!!
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