The Plan....Now with new goals!!!

So about a month and a half ago I came up with a four step plan to help get my non-sleeping baby girl to sleep better. At that point in our lives it took anywhere from 20min - 2 hours or more to get her to go to sleep much less stay asleep. Due to some difficult work we are now worlds away from that time but still not in perfect dreamy sleep land.

The Plan:

#1. Ween her off of the "cuddle blankets".

#2. Get her on more of a regular schedule.
#3. Ween her off the swaddle.
#4. Help her learn to go to sleep on her own.

In light of some of the advances we have made I have decided to add additional goals to the sleep plan. I know I am crazy....

#5. Get rid of paci!

#6. Get her to the point where we can just lay her down say goodnight and she will go to sleep.

How The Plan is going:

#2. So apparently this needed to be much further down on the list if not completely off of the list. With the utter unpredictability of naps it is all but impossible to try and keep some kind of regular schedule. And since I have no idea how to get her to sleep for a regular or reasonable amount at nap time I suppose we will remain using the wake, eat, play sleep cycle that we have been using and hope that someday we can add some actual time slots to each of those activities. 

#4. For the most part she puts herself to sleep. She still cry's sometimes when we put her down but never for longer than about 15 min at the extreme most. She does however cry and never goes to sleep when she is put down in the pack and play :-( which is very frustrating since that is where she needs to sleep when we are out. She was doing better sleeping at night going a 9 hour stretch and then a 3 or 4 hour stretch. and. then. she went back to only sleeping a 5 hour stretch and then waking every 2 or 3 hours. I have no idea why and I have no idea what to do about it! For naps she has been doing fairly well for the most part. On good days taking one 1  1/2 hour or more nap and two 45 min to 1 hour naps. On bad days she takes three to four 30 min naps. She seems to be having more good day's than bad.

#5. I never wanted to use a paci to begin with. I just thought why start something we are going to have to try and quit someday? I actually ended up caving in the hospital! Sophie just wanted to eat and eat and since we had to spend three day's in the hospital due to the c-section and they frown on you sleeping in bed with the baby I was desperate to give her something to suck on besides me so I could sleep! She never really took it very well and never ever took it outside of going to sleep. These day's for the most part when I put her down in bed she usually pull's it out anyway! So starting at nights only I will be trying to rock her without the paci and then put her down.

#6. After I get rid of the paci (hopefully) I am going to start trying to move from rocking her and then putting her down to just laying her down and saying goodnight!

And so the plan continues...

She loves to jump!

The Plan..."Cry baby, cry make your mama sigh"!

#1. Ween her off of the "cuddle blankets".

#2. Get her on more of a regular schedule.
#3. Ween her off the swaddle.
#4. Help her learn to go to sleep on her own.

#4. Despite my somber title things have actually gone fairly well! I am almost embarrassed that I put this off for so long because apparently all my worry that it was going to be horrible was for nothing. Just another huge number of hours of my life wasted on worry! uhhhg!

Soooo I wrote the above two days after we started with sleep training. Sophie tricked us and it is not doing quite as well as the above seems to imply. She is still doing MUCH better than I though but let me just say......this. is. hard.
So far she goes down at night the best with a minuscule 20 min of crying and for the most part no crying at all. She goes down for most of her naps with no crying and sometimes crying for 20 - 30 min. So you say what is the problem what are you complaining about?
Nap length. :-(
She only sleeps for 30 - 45 min tops and we were trying to help her extended those nap times. I have since given up on that!!!! I know she is not getting quite as much daytime sleep as she needs to but we will work on that later. Right now its just too much to do both go to sleep and stay asleep!

#2. To be attempted some other time. Bed time is now between 7:45 and 8:00 pm and wake up is usually around 8:30 am and thats all we got so far!

Check it out! Parrot baby!

Also ten points to whomever can correctly tell me what TV show the quote in the post title is from. I will give you a hint: It is from the episode that was supposed to be the show's pilot.
Trevor you can't play!

The Plan.. Update

So despite some discouragement and sometimes feeling that "The plan" will never ever work or help and I am just fooling myself there is some positive results!


#1. Ween her off the "cuddle blankets": See number 3
#2. Get her on more of a regular schedule: So far all we have down is bed (sorta) and wake time. I bathe her at 8:30am every night then she nurses and she is completely down for the night by 10 or 10:30 between holding her asleep and her waking up after I have put her down. More on this in number 4.
#3. Ween her off the swaddle: Done!!! Check her out in pajamas! I have been so sad because as she tends to be a bit hot natured she would get extremely sweaty and hot with both the swaddle and jammies on so she has slept in just a diaper and the swaddle for quite some time. I was so excited that she finally sleeps in her cute pajamas! And with the swaddle gone somehow she didn't seem to need the "cuddle blankets" so those just went away!

#4. Help her learn to go to sleep on her own: *sigh* this starts tonight :( I have a sleep sheep that I am hoping she will learn to associate with falling asleep as well as help to sooth and calm her. I am planning on letting her cry for 30 min to 1 hour depending on how upset she gets. I am trying to schedule company for when Trevor is at work so that I don't go crazy! Poor baby she has to learn to go to sleep by herself but this not going to be fun!!! I am hoping that once putting her to sleep is not a 20 min to an hour or more process and once she can nap for longer than an hour at a time then we can keep to a schedule a little bit better. 


So thats the plan.........................................................*gulp*! 

The Plan

I like to make plans. I like the feeling of order and security that they give me. I like to feel that if I just have a plan then everything is fine and I can handle anything that happens.
All of the above is great however.....plans rarely work out quite like I...... well.... planned them to. I am aware of this reality and can deal with it. But sometimes I am still taken off guard, I still sometimes think "but I had a plan I am sticking to the plan...WHY IS THIS NOT WORKING!"

Here was the plan for Sophiekins to get her to start sleeping better:

#1. Ween her off of the "cuddle blankets".
#2. Get her on more of a regular schedule.
#3. Ween her off the swaddle.
#4. Help her learn to go to sleep on her own.

Here is how the plan is going:

#1. This one I tried to do for about a week and then completely gave up and haven't tried again since.
#2. This past week was the first time I tried to keep her to any kind of a regular schedule. So far she is still mostly all over the place. Waking up anywhere from 7am - 10:30am and napping anywhere from three to four times a day. She usually will only sleep for an hour at a time during the day unless I can get her to go back to sleep and then she will sleep for another hour or so. Sometimes. I try to put her down to bed at 10pm every night and then she will either wake up between 2 and 4 and then again between 6 and 7 or she will wonderfully sleep till 5 or 7.
So how did trying to keep to a schedule go? Not - that - great - !
I gave us a break this weekend and then tomorrow we are back at it trying to give some predictability to our day!
#3. This is actually not going that bad! She has been sleeping with one arm out for almost a week now and I am going to start her sleeping with both arms out tomorrow...so we shall see how it goes!!
#4. This has not even been attempted yet. I am not looking forward to this as I see sad crying in our future. But I am getting desperate so I have great motivation!
And now some random cuteness!



Wearing dad's work boots



Sitting in mom and dad's bed

Pretty girl!

Isn't she so pretty!




Now when you take her picture she will often look directly at the camera! Trying to figure it out!











The sleep saga continues! The funny thing about it is that once she actually goes to sleep which could take anywhere from 20 min to 2 hours she is a really good sleeper. Night before last she went from 10:00pm - 6:00am without eating. 8 hours!! However she did not go to bed until midnight! And if you can get her down for a nap she usually will sleep at least two hours.
I have been trying to figure out patterns and note what seems to work and what does not seem to work however it is impossible because she never seems to react the same way twice!
I have a sinking feeling in my heart that we are going to have to battle this out soon enough :-(

She is however a very pretty girl! Coming soon....Sophie speaks! (she has been talking for several weeks I just have not had a chance to post the video!)

Zombie Mom....

Halloween 2008

Ok so its not that bad but the sleep deprivation is starting to get to me....Zzzzz

It seems like so much has changed all of the sudden! Sophie is wearing size 1 diapers and they fit her well. She has out grown most of her newborn clothes and I am already having to put them away :-(
She is getting so good at holding her head up.










I put her in her bumbo set yesterday for the first time and she did great! I think she really likes it! She sat and looked at all the pretty colors on the shelf and smiled at them.







Sadly her sleeping problems have not improved everything we try only has varying levels of success and almost nothing that works once works twice.
I am working on a 12 step (or maybe 20 step or maybe 31 step) plan that starts with me transitioning her from her little bed in our room to her great big crib in her own room. She is so little in that great big bed! She took all her naps in the crib today and did very well.




Yes she still has to have her cuddle blankets that make her feel like she is being held!

And so the plan begins....