Monday, October 10, 2011

My little nap resistor!

Last Tuesday and Wednesday night Monkey surprised me and slept straight through the night with only a minor half awakening when I dream fed her before going to bed myself. Not only did she do that but she didn't make a peep until Chris brought her to our bed so I could fed her and that was shortly after 8am! Thursday night unfortunately she woke up at 3:45 am. I hate getting up anymore to fed her because it's so exhausting. I shouldn't complain though at least at the most it only takes 20mins as apposed to 45 - 60 mins that it took before! Friday night it was back to sleeping straight through the night, this time with no dream feeding. All three times though I bolted awake at 6am and basically had to go check to make sure she was okay. I used to be bad for checking on her constantly but I have gotten better at it. This was so unexpected that it happened three times in one week. It's so nice to get 6 hours of sleep in a row. She did it again last night. I hope that this is a new trend!

Her naps all last week have been crappy. The only time she seemed to sleep longer or I should say stay asleep was when I fell asleep with her. Nursing her to sleep is easy when I get her at the right time. If I don't it gets pretty frustrated because she wants to nurse but she wants to look around at the same time. I have tried to darken our room as much as I can but I don't think it's dark enough still. I have been nursing her to sleep for naps in our bed the last few weeks since once she is out it is so much easier to just slink away once she is asleep. I don't have to shift her a bunch of times and then have to set her in her crib without waking her up since she ALWAYS wakes up when I do this. Some days I just need that 20-30 mins to myself and when she wakes up and cries it was really starting to take a toll on my sanity. She is such a nap resistor! The last few weeks however have been less stressful since I made the switch to our bed for naps. It's also so much easier to go back in there and nurse her to back to sleep to try and prolong her naps a bit, which results in one happier baby which makes for a much happier mommy.

I would be fine with short naps if she was okay with that amount of time but she is not. She wakes up clearly still tired, is cranky and just a terror to be around. I only was able to get her to fall back asleep without nursing a few times and sometimes that only lasted for 10 mins. I plan on staying in the room with her this week, so that when she starts to awaken after her 20 mins snooze I can lull her back to sleep right away. According to the no cry nap solution book if I do that after a week or so I won't have to help lull her back to sleep. Hopefully that is true because it would be nice to be able to get some things done around the house while she sleeps.

I think this week I am going to have to start trying to wean her off of nursing to sleep, at least for the first nap. I have to go back to work by the end of January so she needs to be fully weaned before then. There is no way that I can even nurse part time while being back to work, nor do I have time to pump. I honestly just can't take nursing any longer anyways. I have had so much trouble right from the start that I am ready to be done. I nursed longer then I thought I was going to. I remember when I was just trying to make it to the end of the 3rd month and here we are almost the 7 month mark. Currently I have replaced two nursing sessions which had made me less stressed out and much more happier. I was always constantly worried that she wasn't getting enough and quite frankly I don't think she was because after getting those two bottles a day she is a completely different baby. We also started feeding her solids at about 5.5 months old which I think also made a difference. 


So for now if I can wean her of the nursing sessions for naps I can keep the before bed, in the middle of the night if needed and the morning nursing session until December then slowly wean them out then. I know she can fall asleep without nursing since she has done it before. It is just going to be testing my patience a lot because like I said she is a nap resistor and is afraid to miss anything. Hopefully I will have some success! I'm sure after she gets used to not nursing to sleep for the first nap the transition with the second nap will be easy. Only time will tell, but really I have no choice. January is coming so quickly!

Do you have a nap resistor? What did you do to get your little one to sleep?

1 comment:

  1. My son stopped taking naps at around 1. Now, unless he is a holy terror and I know he's tired AND I hold him down there is no way he will take a nap. I am so envious of those parents with kids who do!

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