Sleep

Madeline has not been the best sleeper. It had gotten especially worse as she got older and I always wondered, is it because of teething? Is she hungry? Maybe she has an ear ache? Is that a fever? She just needs some comfort. I felt like there MUST be a reason she was waking up so frequently. But there really was no reason. She just didn’t know how to get herself back to sleep with out mommy’s boob to help out! It was torture. It would take almost 2 hours to get her to bed at night, and then from then on she would be waking every 1-3 hours. If she went 4 hours, I’d be like, wow that was awesome! It was bad bad bad. I was usually a grump zombie on the daily and I wasn’t the best wife or mother. I knew something needed to change, I just didn’t know how to do it. I had read many sleep books, all with some good advice, but nothing that was very clear to me. I was REALLY against crying it out. But I thought, maybe that’s the only way! But then I thought, well it might work for a little while, but then we’ll go on vacation or to my parent’s house, or she’ll get sick and she’ll fall right out of it and we’ll have to do it all over again. I also didn’t want to listen my baby cry scream and not do anything about it. Torture. One night on facebook, I asked my fellow parent friends to give me some sleep advice. I had a lot of people chime in with some really great advice. But again, nothing was really clear and helpful. I thought maybe it was too late to sleep train, or that whatever worked for so and so wouldn’t work with Madeline. I felt hopeless. A few months before, I had a patient talk to me about a sleep specialist in SF named Noelle who was miracle worker. She said everyone raves about her on this golden gate mommy’s group and I should give it a try. I talked to Nathan about it, but he thought it was a huge waste of money and M will start sleeping better sometime soon. I thought yeah, maybe not worth the money… A few months go by and I keep thinking about calling this lady, but didn’t want to pay for it. I had a different patient talk to me about her daughter’s sleep troubles and how they called this Noelle lady in SF and how she was miracle worker. I thought, ‘Okay that’s it!! I’m calling!! I don’t even care what it costs! I need my life back.’ So I talked to Nathan about it again, and again he thought it was a waste and was very skeptical, but said sure I could do it. I set up the appointment for a phone consultation. I was counting down the days to talk this famous Noelle!!

November 12, 2014, I had a one hour phone consultation with Noelle and it was THE BEST. She was super nice and super understanding. I was almost embarrassed telling her what I would do to get M to sleep and back to sleep at night. But she was not judgmental and was so cool and nice. It’s not fun to admit that you’re nursing your baby every hour through the night. I knew that I needed to get Madeline to not nurse through the night, so I was prepared to have her tell me to stop that right away. She never once mentioned to me that I needed to stop nursing through the night, nor did she ever make me feel bad for giving in and letting her nurse. She said our ultimate goal was to get Madeline to self soothe. She said to first work on the bed time routine, once she can put herself to sleep in 20 min, then you move on to the middle of the night, and once that’s all good, then you move on to naps.

She said to talk it all up. On the first day I started (Nov. 14), I told Madeline that at bed time, we are going to put on her jammies, brush her teeth, read a story, say prayers, and then I will nurse her and rock, but then I am going to put her in her crib and she’ll go wahhh wahhh, but she’ll be okay. I told Madeline our bed time routine a couple times and she would sit and look me in the eyes and really listen. I think she understood quite a bit what was going to happen. So the first night, I did all those things, I nursed and rocked and sang, and then I put her in her crib and said my “mantra” – “Night night Madeline, mommy loves you, go to sleep”. And I walked out. She immediately protested. She was screaming and screaming. It was absolute torture for the both of us. Nathan wasn’t home yet, so I huddled in the corner with my note pad to record the time and crying and my phone to watch her every move. Noelle said to go in after the initial 5 min, and give your mantra and quick hug and leave. Then go in every 5-20 min, depending on the crying. She said if the crying is going in and out or she’s laying down, just let her be. You want to go in at the height of her cry. So I went in every 5-7 min and gave my mantra, a quick hug, and left. It was soooooo hard. I wanted to give up and save her and nurse her and let her fall asleep in my arms. But I knew I had to do this. I kept telling myself she’s just protesting, she’s not hurt, she still loves me… So M cried for only 30 min. She was worn out and just sat down with her back against the rails. She just sat there for a while until I realized she was asleep! Her head kind of conked to the side. She fell asleep sitting up! Nathan finally made it home and she had been asleep sitting up for about 20 min. I was getting worried about her air supply, but I was scared to go in and wake her up! So I made Nathan go in to try to move her, but she woke up and started crying. So he rocked her a little bit and layed her down once she was asleep.

Noelle said after you start doing bedtimes, just do the middle of the night the same that you always do. She woke up her usual times that night. The next night, I put her in her crib after our routine, and NO TEARS!! 24 min later she started to cry softly. And 3 min after that she layed down and about 20 min later she was asleep. YAY!

Third night, no tears once put in her crib. 20 min later, did a short soft cry, and ten min later was asleep. Nice! Fourth night, she cried when I put her in her crib, but only for about 3 minutes. And she was asleep less than ten min later. Progress! I knew at this point it was time to work on the middle of the night. Noelle said to pick a target time of when she normally wakes up plus one hour. Don’t go in until that target time. I wasn’t really too sure what her target time was because she was waking up all over the place, 10, 12, 2, 3. So I decided to just see how the night went. On the fifth night, she woke up at 12:30 and I went in and just reassured her and gave my mantra, but didn’t pick her up and walked out. She fell back asleep. The 6th night, we had half an hour of in and out crying when first put into her crib, so I went in to reassure her and ten min later she was asleep. She woke up at 10:30 and started crying, so we watched her for about 5 min and then Nathan went in and reassured her and then she fell asleep 5 min later and slept THROUGH THE NIGHT until 7:10!!! And from that point on she has been a CHAMP sleeper!! Also helped to get night time diapers! I was trying to get by with just a bigger size of our Honest diapers, but that was NO good. M woke up completely drenched in pee. It was so sad and awful. So the night time diapers are great.

It has been life changing. Seriously. Bedtime takes about ten minutes. It’s amazing!! We get her ready, she nurses and then does her all done hands and moves her body up and towards the crib. Sometimes I’m kind of like hey wait, don’t you want to snuggle for a little bit? But she seems anxious to get into her crib! It’s awesome!!! She goes to bed any time between 7 and 8 and sleeps all the way through until 4, 5 or 6 and wakes up crying. I’ve been going in and nursing her and then put her back down. She’ll fall back asleep for an hour or two, or not fall back asleep. I think I kinda retracted by starting to nurse her when she wakes up in the am. Oops. But it’s still wonderful that she’s sleeping so well. Now I just need to get myself to bed earlier.

Her naps were the next thing. That’s been rough. She does great getting herself down for her morning nap, which is usually around 10. But the afternoon nap is hit or miss. She’ll go down around 2 or 3 and sometimes she just hangs out in her crib for an hour. I love that she puts herself to sleep for her naps now, but it’s hard because now she doesn’t like me to rock her to sleep AT ALL! In the afternoon, if she’s having a hard time and crying and not going to sleep, I’ll go in and try to rock her to sleep, but she won’t have any of it! She just tries to sit up and thinks it’s play time. A couple times she’s just looked up at me and laughed and laughed and laughed. It was annoying, but so adorable and funny. I think she might be ready for just one nap, but I don’t know! Church is just impossible. If it wasn’t for my amazing mother- and sisters-in-law, Madeline would never get a nap! I try and try to rock her to sleep in a dark closet, but she just won’t have any of it! I used to be able to nurse her right to sleep and it was easy, but gone are those days. So Donna and Rachel and Megan tag team getting this girl to sleep. It’s so nice. They get her to sleep no problem and hold her for an hour.

It was definitely worth the money to call Noelle and I am so grateful for her help and that Madeline responded so well!

I love that she likes to snuggle Grey, her elephant. I always make sure she has 2 pacifiers and Grey and baby pink.