So my question now is, is there anything I could be working on in the meantime? I was thinking about doing a few things till we did the CIO when the monitors came:
- First off, I think I will push their bed time a little earlier, like have them in bed by 7:30.
- Next, I liked the idea of doing the dream feed around 10:00, that way
-No more night-feeds. since we will be doing the dream feed I am going to trust that they are good enough to go all night without eating.
- When they do get up in the night, I will continue to what I have done before, and let them try to work it out themselves starting with 15 min, and working the time up from there.
I think that if I start out with those things until I get the monitors, it will make it an easier transition for the shock of the CIO nights.... I hope? I don't know why, this is such a big ordeal to me? I never had to do anything this drastic, or thought out with my other boys? maybe I'm just being over dramatic? or maybe the exhaustion is getting the best of me? I just really need to get this under control.
also.... Some of you had asked what our daytime schedule was like so I thought I would post it.
8:30-9:00am : Wake up
9:00am : eat 1 jar of baby food each mixed with a little mixed grains
9:30am : have a 6oz bottle
9:30 to 11:00am : Play time! which consists of jumpers, walkers, tummy scooting everywhere!
11:00 to 1:00pm: I make them 2 more ounces to top them off before nap, I feed them and put them in bed and they usually always sleep 2 hours for this nap.
1:00pm : wake up, eat cereal snacks while auggie eats lunch
1:30pm : have an 8 oz bottle this usually takes them a while to eat. they kind of eat, play, eat, play..
1:30 - 3:30pm : PLAY! this is the time, we would go for a walk if the weather is nice, or I take all the kids to the grocery store = chaos.
3:30pm : Nap time, this nap is usually 1 1/2 hours, but sometimes can be 2 hours
5:00pm : wake up, eat 1 jar of baby food each mixed with some rice cereal OR if we make something baby friendly for dinner they will have a little of that.
5:30 - 7:30pm : have a 6 oz bottle play, play, play...
7:30pm : Tubs... start bedtime routine...
Lets hope that I can get these books off the night stand for a while... I'm sick of them.
Well maybe not ALL of them. I need that last one (Beyond Time Out) for this crazy kid, that will be in an upcoming post.. one thing at a time. It never ends! geeez!
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| Auggie in his mid-dance pose. Always moving, always naked. love. this. kid. |
6 comments:
Good luck!! Sounds like a great plan. I always said I would never do CIO either, but nothing else worked for us. It was hard but after almost three weeks of solid nights' sleep - I am so glad we went for it.
We went from Doodle nursing ALL NIGHT LONG to sleeping through the night pretty quickly, and he was fine. It was more habit than hunger. Hoping it will be the same for your kiddos!! :-)
Video monitors are the best!!! I would be lost without mine. One of the weird things we discovered - both babies sleep much better on their stomachs (and in really odd positions). It freaks me out, so I am glad I can watch them closely!!
Oh I hope this works for you!! I remember how much I dreaded nighttime when we were struggling so. Praying that there are nights filled with much sleep on your horizon! GOOD LUCK!! Keep us posted :-)
Just last night I had what I would call my first real CIO night. I have one twin who sleeps straight through nearly every night and the other who, well, does not. He was up about every 2 hours the night before last and I was up with him and eventually put him in his bouncy seat next to my bed where I could reach down and rock it every time he woke up. Last night he had his last bottle at 9:15 and from 12:30 to 2 AM yelled and fussed off and on in about 15 minute intervals. I never entered the nursery and fortunately for me, he did not wake his brother sleeping in the crib next to his. (This amazes me but they usually do not wake each other up!) It was hard not to go in but he was more mad - it wasn't real crying. This morning I woke to his happy chatter!
Funny about the video monitor though - he had poked one of his feet out of his sleeper. He was fine but of course, I worried that his little piggys would be cold. A video monitor would have shown me that. But not sure I could have fixed it without waking him so maybe it was for the best that I didn't know about it until this morning. ;)
Our daytime schedule (and I use that term lightly) is similar to yours but my twins have a pretty big lunch - baby food jars of meat and veggie combo, another separate veggie, and 1/2 jar of fruit. My guys are not big babies - in the 45 and 50 percentile for weight. For breakfast and dinner they eat 3 to 5 tablespoons of cereal mixed with fruit.
They are up about 6 or 6:30, have a bottle before breakfast, a mid-morning bottle before lunch after their 1 to 1 1/2 hour nap and a late-afternoon bottle before dinner after the PM nap. Then a bottle about 30 minutes before bed. It sounds like they are eating all the time after writing that but it doesn't feel like that. Except for the evening bottles where they take more, they usually take 2 to 4 oz of formula. And I make their cereal with formula so they get the iron/nutrition.
FWIW, I don't think you're being over dramatic at all. I can't imagine going through sleep issues with other kiddos to take care of! Doesn't it feel good to have a plan?
Oh one more thing - an earlier bed time sounds like a GREAT idea. It made a world of difference for me when I started putting mine down earlier.
You are not being overdramatic at all. If I were you, I would be desperate for a solution too. You will love the video monitor. Paulo was actually the one who insisted that we get one--and Emma was already two years old at the time! But it's been great to have with baby #2.
I think your plan of attack sounds fabulous. The dream feed will hopefully make a big difference, and you won't have to worry that they're starving in the night.
Good luck!
I'm really amazed by how much your babies sleep, actually. They sleep more than 12 hours at night and take two long naps during the day? That's way more than mine. I have no idea how much babies sleep babies this age should be getting, but I'm wondering if mine aren't getting enough. They're just terrible nappers and they get up really early in the morning, and I haven't been able to really fix that. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE if they slept until 8:30. Or 8. Or even 7:30. As it is, they go to bed at 7:30 and get up between 5:30 and 6:30. Which is really killing me. They take two naps, usually no more than an hour each. And that's it.
I thought about the video monitors, too, but I've been worried that it will make me more paranoid (like I have to be watching them all the time, now that I'd have the ability to). But it's probably a good idea, one time I had left a blanket hung over the edge of the crib. I thought it would be ok, since my son was swaddled, but it turned out he had somehow gotten it down and wrapped it around his head and was screaming bloody murder. I still feel shaken thinking about that.
Good luck! Do keep us posted!
I was wanting to comment on your sleep post but didn't get a chance to! I hope that things are going better for you so far! Sounds like you got a ton of good advice!
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