(no subject)

[flea]

Thinking of:
1. Taking a trip to Paris with an infant. We could handle it! Of course, we couldn't afford it.
2. In lieu of 1, trying to think of extra fun things to do on Martha's Vineyard, instead of the usual lie around/wander into town/go to the grocery store/go to the beach at 4 pm.
3. Casper will be ONE YEAR OLD in two months! Should we have a birthday party? I think so! In fact, trying hard to resist the idea of inviting everyone we know.
4. Very, very, very tired. Went to medical center library and got four books on infant sleep, the only one of which seems at all useful is the dreaded Ferber. May attempt dreaded Ferber method. Worry that it will catastrophically disrupt breastfeeding schedule, though. Probably will attempt in half-assed way and then give up, leading to no sleep progress, if past actions are any evidence. Still, desperately want more sleep. Also willpower to stick with a method. Also, unrelatedly, pronouns.
5. In over my head in parent-advocacy group leadership. Not sure where we're going.
6. Did I mention tired?

mr. flea comes home at 11pm. yay!

Comments

[burrell.livejournal.com]

I was wondering, how many times does Eve wake during the night? Frances usually wakes up at least once, although disposables seem to help her (and me!) get a good night's sleep. And I know that my friends with the one year old still get roused at least once a night.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

A good night is 3 full wake-ups, with nursing, plus one or two times she wakes and cries out a bit, waking me up, but settling herself without me going into her room.

A bad night is worse.

My breastfeeding concern is that, from the time I went back to work 7 months ago, she has done more than half of her milk intake between bedtime and morning. But, she's eating lots of table foods now.

[burrell.livejournal.com]

3 nursings a night would be hard. I have no advice on how to get her to sleep longer if you are already using disposables at night, alas.

Do you think she's waking because she's hungry? Maybe you can try to get an extra feeding in the mornings. I often nurse Franny twice in the mornings (along with breakfast).

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

I think she's waking to nurse because she got into the habit of waking to nurse when she was small and needed to nurse every three hours, and we never figured out how to get her out of the habit except by refusing to nurse her and letting her cry. Which we have not yet steeled ourselves to do sufficiently.

The other wakings I think are because she hasn't yet gotten good at settling herself when she wakes at night. I gather everyone wakes up at night but mostly we don't remember it because we turn over and go back to sleep, instead of crying, and lately, trying to crawl about the crib, bonking her head. The experts say that the thing to do is teach her to settle herself. The 'teaching' method seems to involve letting her cry until she figures it out, basically. Again, not so much with the steeliness.

How are you? Long time no see. Are you busy? How was the trip?

[burrell.livejournal.com]

I'm okay, thanks. We ended up not going on the trip because we couldn't come to an agreement with the others about the drive. They wanted to drive for 12+ hours in one day, which just wouldn't have worked for the baby.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

My baby ADORED the Flying Horses at about that age. Is the Flea at all able to toddle yet?

I used the dreaded Ferber. If you read him, he's actually much, much more reasonable than people think he is. What gave me the willpower to stick through Ferber? My pediatrician ordered me to do it, because he said the sleep deprivation was going to affect my relationship with the baby. There's a lot of truth in that.

I Ferberized two kids, following his instructions (visit after 10 minutes). It sucked both times. It only lasted a couple of nights. Then I could sleep. The sleep was priceless.

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

I saw a book called "The no-cry sleep solution" (Elizabeth Pantley) at the library the other day & flipped through - it had suggestions for a gradual sleep training process and seemed quite reasonable & moderate. Might be worth checking out if you feel Ferber would be too hard on you.

[makaidiver.livejournal.com]

The newish mom in my book group Ferberized her baby. She said it took 3 days: Day 1, over 2 hours of crying. Day 2, 45 minutes. Day 3, 10 minutes. Day 4 - sleep, and every night ever since. She and her DH did it while visiting his parents, which helped because they could leave the house/sound. Adamant Firm Resolve and Recruitment in Family Support was essential.