Mood:
chattyTopic: Emotional? Not me!
This past week has been a complete roller coaster. I mentioned last week that we'd be starting the Ferber technique with Mia. Well, click this link if you are interested in more details, but basically its a method of encouraging your baby to self-soothe when napping or going to bed at night. We had been nursing her to sleep at night and then moving her into her crib, but she had started to wake up shortly after being moved or several times at night wanting to know how she got from the bed next to Mommy to her crib. She was waking more and more often and getting more and more difficult to get back to sleep again.
So, last Wednesday we decided to start. Each day had a routine that went something like this:
- At 7 p.m., bath time, wash hair and body
- After bath, put on clean diaper, lotion, Aquaphor on diaper area
- Put into jammies and sleep sack
- Towel dry hair, then comb it out
- Book (only if not too tired)
- Lie down to nurse with light off, sometimes while singing
- Pick Mia up awake and put her in crib awake
Of course, each day she cried when we left her alone in her crib, but it has gotten progressively better with each day. We went in to pat her briefly at increasing time intervals (5 min, then 7 min, then 10 min, etc.) Here are the approximate crying times (for my benefit, really, when in a couple years I'm trying to do this for baby#2)
Day 1- 20 minutes crying, 1 wakeup with 45 minutes crying
Day 2- 12 minutes crying, 1 wakeup with 8 minutes crying
Day 3- 25 minutes crying, no wakeups
Day 4- 2 minutes crying, 1 wakeup with about 50 minutes crying
Day 5- 30 minutes crying, no wakeups
Day 6- 5 minutes crying, 1 wakeup- fed her as it was almost 5 a.m.
Day 7 (Last night)- 1 minute crying, 1 wakeup with about 45 minutes crying until finally I fed her, at which point I also discovered that she now has a nasty cold.
I'm telling you, I can't win. So now that she has a cold, will she forget how to sleep by herself? Will I have to start all over? God help me.
On a happy note, I did have a really great weekend. I left Mia with Walter on Saturday and went into Boston to see Dirty Dancing, The Musical (fabulous), with my best friend Jaime (thanks J!). Sunday, my parents came over to watch Mia while Walter and I did some work in the basement. We got so much done, and I felt so much better now that I can actually see surfaces down there!
This weekend Walter works both days, so there won't be much romantic V day stuff going on, but DeShaun turns 15 on Friday, which is cool and scary at the same time!
Well, I'm off to wipe a messy nose :)
