Should I just give up for now?? - Page 2

[Bebe's Mom]

ah, that is terrible, sounds like you are stuck in a vicious cycle. We had a three week long teething/cold period, where she was waking up almost every hour, screaming her head off. it sucked! We gave her meds and suctioned the snot out of her head every night (gross), which helped a lot,but she hated it! One night we had a bad scare, she woke up at 2 a.m. with a fever of 104.5... We put her in the tub and gave her some Ibuprofen and the fever went down, but we were this close to going to the hospital. She seems to be taking a break from teething and has been sleeping really well, although last night she ended up in the bed because I was too lazy to nurse her back down in the crib..I think part of the reason she wakes up is that she is cold. I can't seem to find sleepers that are warm enough-she has some Carter's sleepers with feet, but they are very lightweight, and she has some Osh Kosh sleepers which are the right weight, but don't have feet. aargh. This child absolutely refuses to have a blanket put on her, she removes socks with alacrity and so I am not sure what to do...If you have any suggestions, I would be happy to hear them. Good luck, hope you get some sleep soon!

[Bebe's Mom]

Ugh. Another rough night. I put Bebe down at 6:30, since we went shopping and she took only a short nap in the stroller. She woke up about 4 times from then til 10, which is when I went to bed. She then woke up again at 12:30. Something just snapped in me, and I decided. I am NOT nursing this child any more between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. I just can't do it any more. So, last night I took her and rocked her in the glider each time she woke up. She woke up three times before 5 a.m. and each time it took me about 10 to 15 minutes to rock her back to sleep, after telling her we were going to nurse in the morning, but right now we needed to go back to sleep. I am going to continue doing this until she understands that she will not be nursing through the night any more. She gets plenty of food and nursing during the day, and I know she is just nursing for comfort because she is not getting much nourishment. I would rather just rock her back to sleep than let her sit there with my nipple in my mouth..I really really need this child to sleep at night. I need some down time for myself and for DH, not running to the bedroom every hour because she woke up yelling. I realize she is a baby and has needs and I am there for her, but I need some time to myself as well in order to be a good parent to her. I also need sleep!

[Bebe's Mom]

Just wanted to update this thread to say that we have officially nightweaned DD! She still wakes up at night sometimes, but instead of rocking her, I go and sit with her until she falls back to sleep. The first week was tough, and there was a lot of screaming, but it is gradually getting better. She STTN on Friday, and the other days she has woken up, it has only taken about ten minutes to get her to go back to sleep. In the beginning it took upwards of an hour to calm her back to sleep. What really helped was having DH move out of the bedroom for the first two weeks.

[JuliMummy]

Hi Bebe's Mom,

I'm so glad to hear things are going so well for you. It sounds like you made a lot of progress! Do you feel more rested yet?

We're doing better as well. She hadn't been sick for a few weeks so I decided to give it another go a few weeks ago. She did really well, she didn't actually complain very much at all and within a few days went from waking 5 or 6 times a night to waking just once or maybe twice. I would feed her to sleep in the evening and then not feed her again until after 6am. So we WERE going really well....until that dreaded cold virus struck again! She was unwell for a week and then caught a new cold straight after. So she's been a lot more upset during the night and asking to nurse. I've still managed to hold off until the early hours of the morning but it's been getting earlier and earlier. But she was much happier today so I'm very hopeful that nights will improve again soon. Certainly I feel that the set-back hasn't been as bad as before.After all she's still managing to sleep 5 hour stretches despite the cold which was unheard of a few weeks ago. My husband and I have even started thinking about moving her in with her brother soon   We can't wait to have our bedroom back to ourselves...

[Bebe's Mom]

Yay, glad things are going better for you, sorry about the colds though. I have been getting a lot more rest lately..Although today she had me up at 4:30, and would not go back to sleep...I am going to work on cutting out the 5 a.m. nursing session next, but I don't think she is ready to give it up yet. I too, have had to nurse her earlier than I want to, but it is difficult to stop, because my DH gets up around that time to go to work, so she generally wakes up too. But, she has been sleeping for longer stretches, sometimes up to 7 hours at a time! Hope things continue to improve for you and that your DD gets over her cold soon! Thanks for the update!

[heatheresc]

Just read this thread, and it is great encouragement for the nightweaning that is in our near future!  Thanks for the final update, Bebe's Mom!