Sleep Update

Only for those who are truly interested in the minutiae of infant sleep...

We have made limited progress on the sleep front. Melina will now sleep in her crib for naps, and it *usually* takes less than 15 minutes to get her to fall asleep. Since I installed a fan for white noise next to her crib, she has been waking up every 40 minutes instead of every 20 minutes - I guess that's a 100% improvement (or is it 50%? I was never good at math.) But it's very, very rare that she will nap for more than one hour, unless I'm lying in bed next to her.

She now goes to sleep in her crib around 8:30, which is still far too late, according to "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," a book that I have very mixed feelings about. I think "Healthy Sleep Habits, Guilty and Confused Parent" would be a better title. Anyway, apparently she should be going to sleep around 7:00 - or even 6:00! That's not going to happen. As it is, she will sleep for an hour, wake up (having tossed out the binky), go back to sleep immediately, wake up around 10:00, go back to sleep after some intervention, wake up at 11:00, eat, and then not go back to sleep in her crib at all. At that point she comes into our bed and sleeps either soundly or not very soundly, with a few feedings in the middle of the night.

DH has proposed starting a "cry it out" program tomorrow night. After about a month of sitting next to her crib for most of the evening, I am ready to give it a shot. Several of the women on my iVillage baby board have had success at CIO, with less pain than they anticipated. I am still resisting it. I have taken what the Sears Baby Book says to heart - that CIO will break the bonds that bind us, and probably send Melina into several years of therapy down the road.

I read what Doppelganger wrote about her feelings of depression after her baby finally started sleeping well. I so understand. I really love waking up in the middle of the night and seeing Melina's almond eyes looking up at me, and I even love her pulling my hair and scritching me with her little claws all night long. I know I'll still get to sleep next to her once in a while - probably for naps - and I'll be seeing her at night when I feed her. But this will be the end of a really nice era. Soon she'll be applying to colleges...