I *think* we’re making progress with Caylee’s sleep.
if you’re new to my blog let me fill you in. Caylee is my high needs, 14 month old who has yet to sleep more than 4 hours at a time, and wants to nurse all night and multiple times during the day. She also always wants me to hold her.
While this isn’t a problem for some, I can’t function like this anymore. The co sleeping and constant night nursing has taken it’s toll on me and I’m no longer happy with the way things are. I could very well continue like this, and try to change my attitude, but honestly I’ve been a pretty rotten mommy to her and my 3 year old lately. I know I could also practice the cry it out method which also works for some people. I am not one of those people who can handle that. Knowing how I feel after crying for even 30 minutes makes it hard for me to let her just scream alone in her room. There are multiple views of child raising i’m not saying one is right or wrong, but I’m not the type to let my child nurse all night until they choose to stop and i’m not the type to leave her alone to cry. I’m somewhere in the middle.
I came to the conclusion that the problem was not how many times Caylee was waking up at night, it was that the only way she knew to fall asleep was by nursing. This is totally my fault, because that’s how I’ve always gotten her to sleep, nurse her, lay her in her bed, or in the night it’s been nurse her in my bed while sleeping myself.
We tried a brief bit of cry it out a week ago, in addition to the immediate consequences of her having an upset belly and keeping Lexi up for an hour and a half, it also resulted in us having 3 horrible nights and days. She was twice as clingy and woke twice as often.
Today I’ve been changing the way we go to sleep. for her morning nap there was no nursing at all. I cuddled her in her room, then laid her in her bed and sat on her floor. I rubbed her back a bit when she started getting fussy, but other than that I just sat there. I left after she was almost asleep. this after noon i nursed her down stairs about 10 minutes before I brought her up for nap. then I cuddled her and sat. I left before she was asleep and she took a decent nap. Until I woke her up cleaning the bathroom. but when I went in i noticed she was still tired, so i did the whole process again. and she fell back asleep!
Last night there was a bit of progress too. I nursed her and laid her in her crib, but her sister kept coming up and waking her, so i had to leave her in there. She fussed for just a minute or two and fell asleep.
So this is where I want your opinion. Should I try this method all night, or give it a few days of doing this at nap before I try to apply it at night?
