Sleep trials - part three

This is what happens when I breastfeed not in bed. I can blog more!!

I thought we were vastly improving as far as sleep goes.  But now I feel like we crossed a bridge to go up a mountain.

Last Thursday night was the roughest, until last night. Last Friday was better. And last Saturday was much better and dare I say Sunday was a cinch. But then this week rolled around and...uh, let's say it was rough.
J got home from camping Sunday morning. Yup, that's why I didn't talk about him in the other trials because he wasn't here. It was kind of good because I didn't worry so much about Reese waking him up.
We'd gone to dinner with my parents and my Grandma (Mom's Mom - so Reese's Great Grandma who we'll call GG from now on) for Father's Day. It was her first time meeting her FIRST great grandchild. It was quite fun to see that. When she and Mom send me pics, I'll post those. Anyway, home from dinner and immediate change, bottle and bath. Then it was time to calm her down and go to bed. Nursed and soon enough she was asleep. J had been in and out as I set her down in the again warmed crib. Now we waited.
Almost 50 minutes went by before she woke up. J's eyes darted to me when I didn't jump immediately. Let her fuss for a bit then opted to check her diaper since it'd been awhile since it'd been changed. Sure enough dirty. But she still fussed. Since I'd just pumped and gotten almost nothing, I made a 2 oz bottle of formula and J fed and rocked her. She wasn't having it. So we switched and I offered her what I thought was my near empty breast. I don't know if she got something out or just used me as a pacifier, but it put her to sleep and I waited the again alotted 20 minutes to put her in the warmed crib, as J was closing down the house for the night. I was prepared for tears, but there were NONE!! Had we really made it? I went to bed about 9:30, earliest I had in 3 days, and was woken up at 1:45 am for a feeding. So yes, first night without a fight!!! Yay!!

After the feeding, waited 20 minutes then put her down in the warmed crib and again we were good. I had issues falling asleep but that's because Monday was my first day back at work. Up again at 3:50 am (just over an hour after I had put her down) and fed again. Then at 6:15 am to get ready for the day. Again, between the 3:50 feeding and the 6:15 feeding, I maybe got 45 minutes of sleep. Boo.
She slept bits and pieces at LP's so by the time I picked her up at noon she was exhausted. She slept in the Moby, so I was able to get more work done. Bath, change, bottle and bed were pretty easy, just time consuming. (Have been bathing her in the kitchen sink, but as she's gotten bigger its harder to do, so we opted for the tub since we have a chair she can use in there.) She went down around 7 pm but was back up around 11. Nursed and then back to bed. But she was up again around  12:30. Fed a small amount again and tried to put her in the crib before the 20 minute mark, but she wasn't having it. Tried to let her cry it out a bit, but after 20 minutes of that opted to go in and rock her to sleep and wait 20 more minutes. Almost woke J up to rock her, but I knew I wouldn't go back to sleep til she did so no sense in both of us being up. I think she finally went to sleep.

Monday wasn't too bad but Tuesday night she was up and down quite a bit. Wednesday, after the whole LP debacle she wasn't a happy girl sleep-wise. When we visited the daycare, she was an angel. But we got home and she just wasn't a happy girl. Truly, I can't tell you what happened because I'm officially sleep deprived. All I can tell you is she slept on and off. And Thursday was way worse...I had finally recieved the Sleep Lady's book so I was reading as fast as I could for insight. Everytime we put her down in the crib she screamed and fussed. We started all this at 7:30 pm and by 12:30 am she still hadn't calmed down so I gave up and brought her to our bed where she was out in minutes and we both finally got some shut eye.
Gma and GG came over Friday (thankfully!!!) to help while I worked. But eventually I had to give up on that too and go take a needed nap. Gma said she rocked Reese to sleep 5 times. then put her in the crib and she'd sleep for 10 minutes then cry. They finally got her to sleep in the swing where she slept for about 2 hours. Played a bit with her and talked to Dr. Kids who said crying doesn't hurt her even for hours. She also suggested letting her sleep in the swing and gradually slowing the speed so she gets used to sleeping without movement. J talked to his friend at work who suggested swaddling (we stopped doing it because she was breaking it and always woke up hot).

After her bath tonight, we swaddled her just with a diaper on and J fed her the bottle of formula while I paid bills and said she didn't even eat half before she fell asleep. So he held her while she slept for a bit. Then when she roused, I took her and gave her the rest of the bottle and then some breast. She stopped eating, so I held her until she went to sleep then decided to try putting her in the crib. Amazingly, she didn't fuss and was asleep for about 3 hours.

Woke up about 12 am and I changed and fed her. Asleep in my arms and put her in the crib, she woke up almost immediately. She hadn't eaten for as long as usual so fed her on the other side. Again, asleep on me and as soon as she was in the crib, awake. I patted her and talked to her, but didn't pick her up. Said goodnight and went back to bed where I watched her fuss on the monitor and tried not to feel bad letting her cry. Forty minutes later, she fell asleep. Up again about 3:45 am and let her fuss a bit, but finally relented and when I picked her up, her swaddle blanket was  a little wet with pee, so changed her diaper and put the blanket in the dryer while we nursed. By the time we finished nursing, the blanket was dry and she could be re-swaddled. Put her in the crib (now complete with a shirt that I'd worn so she had the smell of me there per a tip my Dad heard), said goodnight and away I went. She gradually started to fuss but it was far less aggressive than the time before and this time only lasted 26 minutes. Kind of surprised me, truth be told, when she dropped off to sleep. And slept another 3.5 hours, giving me another nice nap to start my day with. Not sure if she slept well because she hadn't really slept the day or night before, or if we've really turned a corner. Only time will tell. So as you can see, we're on quite a little journey. Glad you've decided to join us!!