Monday, December 22, 2008

Sleeping

So I believe in a couple past posts I complained about Italia's sleep habits. This is an update and its going good.
Background: Italia has always been a late sleeper but she also slept in so I never was overly concerned about her not getting her sleep and she would take naps. She would also wake up alot during the night. Recently the waking up at night was due to the fact that we are all sharing a room. So she would wake up and see us then instead of going back to sleep she would call out to us. Italia was still on a bottle to go to sleep and would still require a bottle during the night. At one point I had her only using bottles for bedtime and nap time and sippies during the day but then somehow she would up having a bottle all day no more sippies. I am not overly sure how this happened.
About a week before Thanksgiving her sleeping got worse. She was staying up later and she required being rocked to sleep then placed in her crib. Needless to say this was hard on everyone. Then after Thanksgiving we all got sick and all Hell broke loose. She was staying up until 2am and we were fighting her fever many nights and days so she took random naps and she wound up in my bed everynight. While she was sick I allowed this and also cause I was sick I didn't have the energy to attend to her all night and her in my bed made it easier for everyone. So once she was better I knew I needed to get her out of the bed but it didn't go to well. Italia decided she would much rather sleep with us every night then in her crib. So needless to say I had had it.
One night I kind of had a break down. I knew I needed something drastic and I needed rules cause I had tried letting Italia "cry it out" but I always gave in it just hurts my heart to much to listen to her cry. Also Italia has a bad habit of gagging and throwing up when she cries to hard. And she also knows gagging is what gets me out of bed when we are trying to get her to fall asleep in her crib.
So I came across website about sleep tips and downloaded the ebook. I liked this cause the book was honest and let you know most likely there would be some long rough nights and it didn't happen over night. I knew I had to be strong and not give in once cause the book said if you give in once then your baby will know you have a breaking point and won't give up until you are to that point.
We are on our 4th night and Italia is adapting surprisingly well. I thought cause she was so hard before that we would have a really rough few nights but I was preparing myself. And remind you I am doing this alone cause Donny is a work. I also felt that I couldn't go much longer the old way and I needed to start as soon as I read the book and not wait for Donny.
The first night was def the worst. We did a bed time routine which has helped her a lot. Then I laid her down and left the room. And she cried and screamed like expected and I went in there after a couple minutes and that made it worse so I left again. And eventually she fell asleep it was really hard but I kept reminding myself I can not give in once not once. Then she woke up about an hour later and I am suppose to give her 10min before checking on her but after 2 min I knew throw up was involved. So I went in cleaned everything up and settled her back down. And left again withing a few minutes we had throw up again (at this point she is making her self throw up on purpose) cleaned up again settled her down put her back to bed and keep reminding myself not to give up once not give up once.
Then she did it a third time. I put her to bed a third time. Then she fell asleep that third time was the toughest cause by that time I was out of sheets her blankie was in the washer and I didn't know what to do. But I found a couple extra blankets and laid them down and and put her down again.
She woke up a couple times but was able to put herself asleep without me giving up. Naps have been easy everyday with little crying.
Last night she did throw up but then was asleep and didn't wake up at all.

Okay this has been long enough

3 comments:

lexie said...

congrats! Keep it up!you might have to do it again when you move!

AMBER said...

Great job Mel! Its hard I know but I'm glad you didn't give in. She'll eventually realize that its okay to go to bed without anyone. It'll be worth it then you can have a few hours to yourself at night, which everybody needs.

Jessica said...

I feel for you! I had to do the same with P over Christmas and she does the gagging thing on purpose in order to get attention. It was awful the first two nights, but now she doesn't even fuss when I lay her down. My prayers are with you!