Our dear daughter, now nearly 5 and a half months old, has been having a terrible time sleeping for the past little while.  She’s gone from sleeping a 5-7 hour stretch, to fighting to stay down for even two hours.  Desperate for a gentle way to get her to sleep, my husband and are reading the “No Cry Sleep Solution” by Elizabeth Pantley.  The first stage involved, of course, reading the book! As I was extremely eager for sleep, this stage did not take long – I made it my (second to baby) full time job.  My husband and I compiled a list of great tips from the book, and followed our new routine diligently for the first few days.

Something impressed upon us several times throughout the book was that if there is an underlying issue with your baby, it is not the time to start the “No Cry” program, or any other for that matter.  Until the baby’s issues are resolved, she’s just not going down without a fight.  This is something we have found out over this past week, as our dear child’s sleep has deteriorated even further.

After much research, it appears our poor little girl is both teething and suffering from separation anxiety.

Teething

While every baby is different, one of the signs your baby might be starting to cut a tooth will be irritability and a disrupted sleep pattern.  While the first teeth don’t typically emerge until about 6 or 7 months, the process (and pain!) can begin as early as 3 months.  And, once the first tooth has emerged you can expect a new one every 3-4 weeks.  So just when you thought you were getting your child into a particular sleep pattern, its going to be disrupted. Over and over and over again.  Some things you can do to assist your child include providing a teething toy (placed in the fridge, not the freezer!), a frozen wash cloth, or other toy that Baby can safely gum, a dose of children’s Tylenol if it appears she is in a great deal of pain, and lots of snuggles. I’ve also read that babies who are teething get comfort from sucking, so you might expect to be feeding more or providing a soother more often.

Separation Anxiety

You may have already noticed your child playing shy with strangers (our DD went through a phase of screaming bloody murder when in the presence of a new person!), but around five or six months your baby is starting to recognize herself as separate from you.  This, as you might imagine, is terrifying for them.  Now when you leave the room, she fears you may not return.  We noticed that our baby might be suffering from separation anxiety last night (well, its been going on for about two weeks but we identified it last night).  It started with her waking up nearly immediately when I put her to bed in her crib, or if she would sleep, she’d wake up every 20 minutes screaming in what can only be described as fear.  Last night, my husband came into her room to relieve me as I had been trying to get her to sleep for over an hour.  Normally when he picks her up she is all smiles, however last night she started hysterically crying immediately.  Needless to say, it was quite frustrating for him.  He began walking around her room, and everytime he would face her to me she would stop crying instantly.  I asked him to come a little closer, and she reached both arms out to me.  As soon as I took her, she began stroking my face and cooing.  When I gave her back to Dad, she would again start crying.  We immediately ran to our computers to research this, and it looks like she is indeed beginning her separation anxiety phase.

A few things we are trying with her are; not sneaking out of the room when we put her down.  We’re trying to always say “Hello” and “Goodbye”.  Leaving for a minute and then returning, so that she can trust we will always come back.  Snuggling her more during the day; last night I brought the trusty sling out of storage and it was the only thing that eventually got her to sleep. I’ve used it today for naps, and its working well so far – she’s taken two hour long naps and its just past noon!

So, until we can get a handle on the teething and separation anxiety, we will not be fighting her to sleep. Instead, we will be patient, comfort her in every way we know how, and I will continue to silently repeat my mommy mantra: “It won’t be like this for long”.

My dear daughter is just about 5 months old, and try as I might I cannot get her to sleep for longer than 2 hours at a time.  Before you jump on me and say “Two hours! I’d love a two hour break during the day! What are you complaining about??”, I am not referring to nap time (the word has no meaning in my household!).  I am sure I am not alone when I complain that my dear little babe sleeps no more than two hours a time at night.

It hasn’t always been this way.  For a few weeks, she would nod off at about 10pm and wake when my husband got up for work at 5:30am.  After a quick feeding, she’d be back to sleep until about 7 and then we’d be up for the day. I mistakenly complained then that I wished she’d let me sleep in.  Now I wish she’d let me sleep at all!!  I don’t know what happened, but all of a sudden she was back to waking every two hours, and its been that way for about two months now.  Needless to say, I am absolutely exhausted.

When I complain to family and friends, the response nearly 90% of the time is, “Have you tried letting her cry it out?”  I cringe at the very thought.  The honest truth is, I have tried to let her “cry it out”.  When she was about 6 weeks old, I awoke one night to her cries and let out an audible sigh, which in turn woke my husband.  I began to cry myself – as a new parent and with no end in sight I did not see how I could carry on this way.  He suggested I let her cry and see if she would fall back asleep on her own.  In my sleep deprived state I did not disagree – maybe, just maybe, my family and friends were right. Maybe she would fall back asleep on her own and so could I.  I lay awake listening to her crying out into the blackness of her bedroom, pausing in between gasps as if straining to hear my footsteps, the sound of impending comfort.  After an hour of complete agony I could bear this no longer, and ran to her side.  Her face was soaked as tiny teardrops sprang from her clenched eyes.  I decided at that point that “crying it out” was not for us.

Every family is different, and I by no means am an expert or an experienced parent.  I do, however, know what is right for me and for my baby.  That being said, I can’t get by on two hour stretches of sleep!!  In search of a better way, I have been referred to the “No Cry Sleep Solution” by Elizabeth Pantley.  After reading through the first chapters, I am so far in agreement with the author and am eager to make this work for us!  The first step is to complete logs of naptimes, the pre-bedtime routine and the night wakings for a 24 hour period.  We’ll be starting tomorrow, and I will be blogging daily about our progress until we can both finally rest!

I’d love to hear from other parents who have tried this method, or had success with other techniques

Prior to the birth of our first child, I had heard about co-sleeping (or the “family bed”) and quickly dismissed it due to both safety and comfort issues.  I was concerned that, once my baby was born, either myself or my husband would roll over onto the baby, or that she would roll out of the bed completely.  As well, I (incorrectly) assumed that sharing a bed with my baby would foster a dependency on me that would be hard to shake when she became a toddler.  However, now that my little one has arrived I have done a complete 360.  Here’s why:

1)  Breastfeeding:  I always planned to exclusively breastfeed, and as a first-time mom did not realize how difficult it would be, mostly due to nighttime feedings.  My daughter wakes to eat roughly every hour and a half, and cluster feeds once a night for at least two hours.  We started out having her in a crib in her own room, and getting out of bed to sit with her in her room for feedings is exhausting and frustrating. Having her right next to us in bed means more sleep for me and more comfortable feedings for both mom and baby.  As well, not having to disturb her by pulling her out of her warm crib (and thereby completely wakening her) helps her to fall asleep after eating faster and with less fussing.

2) Peace of mind: Even with the baby monitor beside my bed, I find myself unable to get to sleep wondering if the silence means she has stopped breathing or is merely asleep.  I check on her often throughout the night, which usually ends up waking my husband, the dog and the baby!! Co-sleeping allows us to constantly check on her, and often we fall asleep lulled by the sounds of her peaceful breathing.

3)  Quicker response time (Secure Attachment): The debate between letting your baby “cry it out” and responding immediately shows no sign of letting up anytime soon, however if you subscribe to the theory that immediate and appropriate response to your infant’s needs will foster a secure attachment, increased capability for communication and a stronger bond between parent and child, co-sleeping should be a no brainer for you.  Having our newborn next to us at night ensures that either my husband or I are able to respond to her needs faster than when she was in her own room, resulting in a calmer little girl who cries less frequently (and less frustration for mom and dad!)

4) Getting baby to sleep:  As new parents, we learned very quickly that newborns don’t sleep through the night (or, at least ours didn’t).  This lack of sleep has (so far) been the single most frustrating part of parenting for us.  Waking up to attend to our little one, not knowing what she needs, and operating on two hours of sleep each night for several weeks at a time caught up to us and hit us hard and fast.  As soon as we started sharing a family bed, our sleep increased dramatically.  Being able to respond right away to our child helpes her to get back to sleep with less fuss, and knowing Mom and Dad are only an arms reach away means she sleeps for longer stretches each night. I cannot express enough how this has helped us maintain our sanity and bettered our relationship with our baby.

All of this being said, we still wrestled with the safety issues of co-sleeping when we began. Pillows stacked on the side of the bed took up alot of space, and we both slept very lightly for fear she would either roll off the bed or become wedged between the mattress and the bedroom wall or other crevice.  An extensive search of parenting forums confirmed these are common worries for new parents.  After trying several different methods, I came across the Family Co Bed Sleeper.  Essentially its a large pad made of organic cotton that sits on top of your bed attached to a 5 foot ‘tube’ that blocks the entire side of the bed (an unexpected bonus is the pad is quite absorbent, so I am not washing my breastmilk soaked bedding every day!!)

Co-sleeping may not be for everyone, but I honestly don’t know if I would have been able to continue breastfeeding if my husband and I hadn’t given it a try.  And there is no way I would have made it through the every-30-minute cluster feedings that occured during the three and six week growth spurts (I didn’t know I could survive on such little sleep!!)