It's been about a month since the new sleep initiative began for Dorothy. It's had its ups and downs, but we are generally all sleeping better. Or at least we have a routine.
Dorothy starts her bedtime routine around 6:30 or so, depending on when her last nap of the day was. We read some books, nurse (or she gets a big bottle on the days when I'm not home from work yet), brush her teeth, snuggle, and she goes in the crib. She's mostly been falling asleep pretty fast, only occasionally protesting the initial bedtime. She usually wakes up around 10 PM and complains for a little while - sometimes a single token cry, and sometimes up to 5-10 minutes of off-and-on fussing. We haven't been going to her for this one, since she doesn't seem to be hungry, and we want her to learn to go to sleep on her own. She usually wakes again sometime between 11:30 and 12:30, and I feed her then. She's been sleeping for almost exactly four hours after that feeding, waking up between 3:30 and 4:30 for a second feeding. Then she sleeps for two hours, or maybe two and a half if we're lucky. So some mornings she's up at 5:30, and some at 6:30 or occasionally even 7:00. If it's 5:30, I usually bring her to bed to feed again and end up falling asleep myself for a little while. I don't know if she dozes off or just plays until we wake up.
Of course, all this is out the window when Dorothy is sick. Right now, she's coughing at night, and sometimes waking herself up. I just went in to nurse her a little and help her get back to sleep (at 9:15 PM), and I expect to do it several more times tonight. Then we may need to go through a few more nights of fussing and complaining when she gets better, but still expects the constant attention. I'm hoping we'll be able to eliminate the 4 AM feeding sometime in the next month, so I only have to get up once at night, but we'll see how it goes.
Posted by Elizabeth Nugent at December 6, 2004 09:26 PM