On Thursday, I attended the infant sleep class that is put on monthly at our health unit. I went to one of these with Gemma and wanted a refresher, to see what it is that i'm missing with Leni. The instructor was different, but the handouts were the same and I basically learned nothing. The simple answer to my problem of Leni waking multiple times throughout the night was "get rid of the soother". I plan on doing that eventually, when Leni is 6 months old, but not now. So I walked away thinking I am just going to have to deal with it for at least another couple of months.
Once I got home, Jesse and I decided that we needed to have Leni move out of our room. That is the one big difference between Gemma and Leni - Gemma was out of our room at 8 weeks and here was Leni, at 4+ months, still in our room. Jesse is always quick to jump up at every whimper and we were sure that wasn't helping things along. I guess our thought process was that we need to get to her before she starts to scream, in case that wakes Gemma.
We live in a three bedroom house and really need a fourth room. Our basement is being worked on, but who knows when that will be done? We have a bonus room upstairs that we talked about converting into a bedroom, but we decided that we just can't wait for that to happen. So major room-swapping was done. My mom moved into our room, we moved into the bonus room (though it has no door or closet), and Leni moved into my mom's room. The hope is that once Leni starts to sleep through the night, we can move her into Gemma's room and then we can switch back to the way it was. We are essentially trading privacy for some (hopefully) sleep.
Friday night, Leni woke up twice and I let her cry for a bit to see if she could settle herself. She couldn't, so we had to put the soother back in, but we learned that Gemma will sleep through the screaming.
Saturday night (last night), she slept 11.5 hours straight without us hearing a peep.
I have to say, that solid stretch of sleep was much needed (for me!) and sooooo appreciated! Thank you Leni! I hope it continues!!!!
i am having the same problem with Enzo except i want to take the soother away and my hubby says hes too young. I tell him im the one thst gets up with him anyways!
ReplyDeleteI totally support taking the soother away! I read that babies older than 6 months don't have that NEED to suck anymore, so I think it's probably good to break the habit sooner rather than later. like you said, YOU're the one getting up, not Peter! Good luck, Ana!
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