Well, our Olive is one tough nut for sure. I've lost track of the number of nights it's been since we started forgoing her midnight feeding in hopes of getting her to sleep through the night. I've logged nine hours of sleep (plus a blessedly rare one-hour nap I squeezed in today) this week and, like clockwork, Olive is wailing her brains out. She does this nightly for well over an hour. Last night I went to bed earlier than usual, but suffered a bout of insomnia that lasted two hours, taking me right up to Olive's midnight howl fest. She's fine during the day, but these night wakings are starting to get to me. A book that I read during her earlier months, 12 Hours of Sleep by 12 Weeks, assured me that three nights of crying it out would cure a fussy baby at night; the first would be the most difficult, the second trying, but not so bad, the third much better, and the fourth - sleeping babe. Was I a gullible fool to fall for such hogwash? Evidently so. Each night I go to bed thinking, This is it. This will be my night of sleep. And each night is the same. Rob's been lucky, getting to sleep in with her the past few mornings while I head off to work before 7 am. He has the enviable ability to lull her back to slumber after I've left the bed (I take her from her crib when I wake, feed her then leave her in our bed to sleep the rest of the morning with Rob. They're nearly always still there, fast asleep when I return hours later). When I have the opportunity to sleep in and keep her with me, all she wants to do is inspect my face and play - lovely things in and of themselves, but I always have to call it a night as far as my rest is concerned. Now I'm just waiting for her to cave, to break, to realize that her incessant braying when we're going to bed is not going to land her some late night bro-down sessions with us. I'm beginning to fear that this little goon is going to be as stubborn as I was, and I'd be a liar if I said that this thought didn't strike fear in my heart.
Though it will take me days - if not weeks - to catch up on my lost sleep, tomorrow morning I'm off, which means that my doll of a husband will rise and take Olive into the living room to play, leaving me in our pitch-black bedroom dreaming of ten thousand mute babies.
i'm sorry. sounds like waily gail. she STILL wakes crying in the night-- i went up twice last night to her cries. now there's no leaving her to cry it out, as we've realized what a subborn gal she is- she'll just get louder, and she'll wake jack, if she hasn't already. i have no suggestions.
ReplyDeletegood thing you have a a husband like rob. mike is the exact way- on his mornings, he can get them to sleep on (i think part of it is that he's just a super-heavy sleeper and doesn't wake when they're digging at his face and crawling all over him). and on weekends, he often takes them all for me so i can catch up a bit. isn't it wonderful?