I thought the 6 month growth spurt was crazy, but its a distant blurry memory now... in fact if i didnt have the post saying it was tough, i'd say.. it was ok! jeez talk about the amnesiatic properties of oxytocin.
now the fourth month regression. ha! thats the one from hell. its the day you stopped sleeping and woke up every hour. i think it was my own fault. it started so gradually and then i made it worse by picking you up everytime you woke up.. and nursing you. and then my mom rocked you to sleep so nicely everyday and then she left. and so you got used to waking up every sleep cycle and being nursed to sleep or rocked to sleep. darn suddenly one day you just woundt sleep more than 35 minutes. but you really did go through a growth spurt at 3 months and then it led to the wonder weeks and i really had no idea what was going on with you.... cut me some slack will ya ?
that's when i started sleep training. not the CIO, Dont think i have the stomach for it. but the PuPd. and it was tough. tough on my nerves, tough on poor back. tough on K. tough with sleep deprivation. sure it would have been easier to continue nursing you to sleep, but then one day you nursed and nursed and still couldnt fall asleep.. so then i thought , the heck with all this. you are learning to fall asleep on your own.
i was literally driving myself nuts calculating your awake times and sleep durations and no matter how i changed your routine/schedule you still would not sleep. and then one day it hit me.. you needed almost 8-9 hours awake time and that meant you actually sleep very little dring the day. unlike other babies, you only sleep 3-4 hours not 4-5! it was like a light bulb went off in my head and i had my aha moment. yaay i finally figured something out and atleast got you on the right schedule which then helped the pupd work better.
so the pupd wasnt super easy like the books make it seem.. there were days of regression on both our parts. my fault mostly. on the 5th day i'd be so exhausted i'd let you sleep with me nursing through the night. and bam! the next day you resisted pupd all over again. thankfully i never had to do more than 15 min of it. since that would have just broken my back like a dry twig snapped between our fingers. you caught on pretty quick i have to give you all the credit. what with my muddling on missing your sleep cues and me feeding you too often so that you got used to snacking. dear baby, the fault is all mine while you were perfect. you followed where i led. and once i realized the path back to sanity, you dutifully followed me there too. albeit a little reluctantly coz it involved more work on your part and less on mine.. but you did not resist too much. not like a kicking horse would.
2 weeks. thats what it took to see a major improvement and only because we took it in stages. with a little more crying we could have done it in one week, but we took it a bit slowly. hopefully that was the right choice and it made things easier for both of us.
some day i'll write all about it. so that i remember what to do correctly the next time , if you have another regression due to those awful amazing wonder week.
now the fourth month regression. ha! thats the one from hell. its the day you stopped sleeping and woke up every hour. i think it was my own fault. it started so gradually and then i made it worse by picking you up everytime you woke up.. and nursing you. and then my mom rocked you to sleep so nicely everyday and then she left. and so you got used to waking up every sleep cycle and being nursed to sleep or rocked to sleep. darn suddenly one day you just woundt sleep more than 35 minutes. but you really did go through a growth spurt at 3 months and then it led to the wonder weeks and i really had no idea what was going on with you.... cut me some slack will ya ?
that's when i started sleep training. not the CIO, Dont think i have the stomach for it. but the PuPd. and it was tough. tough on my nerves, tough on poor back. tough on K. tough with sleep deprivation. sure it would have been easier to continue nursing you to sleep, but then one day you nursed and nursed and still couldnt fall asleep.. so then i thought , the heck with all this. you are learning to fall asleep on your own.
i was literally driving myself nuts calculating your awake times and sleep durations and no matter how i changed your routine/schedule you still would not sleep. and then one day it hit me.. you needed almost 8-9 hours awake time and that meant you actually sleep very little dring the day. unlike other babies, you only sleep 3-4 hours not 4-5! it was like a light bulb went off in my head and i had my aha moment. yaay i finally figured something out and atleast got you on the right schedule which then helped the pupd work better.
so the pupd wasnt super easy like the books make it seem.. there were days of regression on both our parts. my fault mostly. on the 5th day i'd be so exhausted i'd let you sleep with me nursing through the night. and bam! the next day you resisted pupd all over again. thankfully i never had to do more than 15 min of it. since that would have just broken my back like a dry twig snapped between our fingers. you caught on pretty quick i have to give you all the credit. what with my muddling on missing your sleep cues and me feeding you too often so that you got used to snacking. dear baby, the fault is all mine while you were perfect. you followed where i led. and once i realized the path back to sanity, you dutifully followed me there too. albeit a little reluctantly coz it involved more work on your part and less on mine.. but you did not resist too much. not like a kicking horse would.
2 weeks. thats what it took to see a major improvement and only because we took it in stages. with a little more crying we could have done it in one week, but we took it a bit slowly. hopefully that was the right choice and it made things easier for both of us.
some day i'll write all about it. so that i remember what to do correctly the next time , if you have another regression due to those awful amazing wonder week.
