In The Still Of The Night

Amazing how much one can learn in a week.  I told you last post that I'd give my thoughts on the Dr.'s advice, and here they are.  At Audra's 6 month well-baby checkup, the conversation came up when he asked about her sleep.  I told him she wasn't sleeping through the night anymore, although she used to.  After telling him our normal middle-of-the-night-routine (feed her until she's asleep, or feed then rock back to sleep, then put her in bed), he told us this:  he said since she used to sleep through the night, it's clear that her nutritional needs were being met throughout the day.  That being said, he suggested not feeding her when she wakes in the night.  He said even rocking her every time will make her less likely to fall asleep on her own (long term), and that she needs to get used to waking up and falling back asleep in her crib without getting out.  He suggested rubbing her back, patting her, etc. but trying not to get her out.  So that night, I tried it.

And it went HORRIBLY.  Tears... oh, the tears.  Once she really started crying, I picked her up and rocked her, though I had no intentions of feeding her (since he said she shouldn't need it).  As I stated last post, her crying went on for what seemed like FOREVER until I finally fed her.  And then I had some choices to make.  I found myself thinking that there had to be some middle ground.  Somewhere in between feeding & rocking her to sleep, and not feeding or picking up my baby at all. 

So the next day, I bought The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley.  Many, many people had recommended this book so I decided to give it a try.  Last night I finally got a chance to do some reading.  As I kept reading, the question marks slowly started to fade as things became more and more clear.  I felt like I had answers.  I felt like this author had been sitting in Audra's room in the still of the night observing our every movement; she was so spot on.  At one point, she outlined our exact middle-of-the-night-routine, forgetting nothing and adding nothing extra (I was going to quote it, but it's copyrighted).  ;)  Then she talked about the Phases of easing a baby into independent sleep.  Phase One basically being what we're doing now, and Phase Six (the last phase) resulting in comforting from the doorway.  She describes each phase in detail, and... whattaya know, I found the phase that I had tried when trying to implement the Dr.'s advice.  That tearful night, she woke up and I tried patting her back and soothing her from outside the bed... but that's Phase Four!  I had skipped a lot of steps, and (as Pantley confirms) trying to rush the process and jolt the baby out of their normal/comforting midnight routine will only result in stress and tears.  So... lesson learned.

So thank you to any of you who recommended this book.  I can tell that it's going to be a life sleep saver.  It'll take a while before we're the "comfort from the doorway" parents, but I'm confident that we'll get there.  So I'll keep feeding her, as Phase One allows, and we'll slowly make our way to where the Dr. wants us to be.  I have to give him a bit of credit; at the end of all 6 phases, Audra will be where he recommended- so his advice isn't totally off.  It would have been helpful, though, if he told us how to ease her to that point rather than making us believe that we should just do it cold turkey.  The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley.  Loving it.

On a sidenote:  my milk production had been down (which should have told me that of course she was hungry in the night), and I fixed it!  More Milk Plus by Motherlove.  Tastes awful, but increased my production to nearly double in just 12 hours.  If you're a breastfeeding mama, perhaps it can be of some help to you.  :)

I'm loving finding solutions to some of my frustrations.  I've got to admit, I've felt defeated in a lot of different things lately (breastfeeding, sleep, all resulting in tiredness throughout the day resulting in low productivity at home; I think you get the picture).  I think things are going to get better, really really soon.