Emma's sleep is still crappy. There's no better word for it without using ugly words that I'd rather not use. I'm gradually trying to make her bedtime a little earlier. I've learned a lot about her over the last couple of weeks. Each night around 6:30 starts what I call the "witching hour." She is SO tired and starts to get fussy. There's just no pleasing her with anything except for bath and bedtime. I'm starting to think that she may need to be down by 6:30, but it's really going to mess with OUR schedule if we do that. Right now she's down somewhere between 7:30-8:30. She's been sleeping until about midnight and then is up about once an hour. Most of those times I put the passy back in and we go back to sleep, but we're up again in an hour. It really takes a lot out of you when you go to bed around 10:30 or 11:00 and then are up in an hour. There's something to be said for long stretches of sleep!
I've done a lot of internet research over the last few days about what could possibly be going on with my little princess. There's something that I had never heard of before called the "4 month wakeful period." Basically, because babies are developing so much cognitively around their 4 month birthday, they are more frequent wakers at night. I'm not sure whether or not it's true, but it seems to be. She doesn't really "wake up" when she fusses at night. Her eyes stay closed but she cries. If you get her up, she screams hysterically because she wasn't actually awake. This afternoon I posted a message about our sleep mess on one of my mothering message boards. A mom wrote right back and said that her son did the EXACT same thing - down to the waking times, for 2 weeks straight. I'm hoping that that's what this is and that she'll snap out of it soon. It's taking a toll on mama!
We've tried a few things to get over this sleep hurdle, but nothing has worked so far. We are letting her try to soothe herself back to sleep when she fusses. We've stopped getting her out of the crib when she does it. We just talk to her or put her passy back in. Tonight I'm going to try something different. A doctor wrote on a website about the "4 month wakeful period." Her theory is that it's a growth spurt and that the baby is actually hungry when they wake up in the night. Emma's never turned down her "boops" so I'm going to try feeding her tonight. I usually feed her once or twice when she wakes during the night, but I'm going to try to feed her whenever she cries and see if she at least sleeps longer. We'll see. Something's gotta give!
Emma also has a cold that is making her a little miserable. So far it's just a sneezy, runny nose, kind of cold. Her Daddy also came down with a cold 2 days ago. Not sure where she got it - we haven't been anywhere! It's amazing how little you want to get out and do when you haven't gotten any sleep in 2 or 3 weeks :) We're praying that it isn't a bad cold and that she's not down for long. Keep your fingers crossed!
How Emma likes to sleep - COMPLETELY smooshed into the matress! She CAN breathe under there though.
I asked Brad to watch Emma while he put away his laundry and I took a shower. This is what I came back to. I think they were watching The Family Guy. How can I complain though?? :)
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