So the story goes...the girls had a somewhat rough adjustment to sleeping when we moved in with the in-laws. This only lasted about a week or two and they were back on track. But for the past month Seren has woken up and grumped in the middle of the night. We mostly let her go and if she fussed for more then 10 minutes or so we would go get her, usually out of worry for Kendall waking up. Sometimes Kendall would sleep through this but generally the moment we went to get Seren, Kendall was up as well. We started stretching out the time we'd wait to get them which seemed to stretch the days between getting them up. But for the last week Seren has screamed bloody murder. Her arm getting cut off type of bloody murder. The first time she did it I literally jumped out of bed and nearly ran to their room. Scared the crap out of me. But nothing was wrong beyond a little girl who wanted to get attention and maybe a midnight snack before going back to bed. She didn't cry after we got her up and she acted perfectly happy and healthy the next morning and day. No concerns. The next night it happened again and again after that. By the end of the week we wondered if there was something wrong or if she was just teething or having nightmares. We contacted our doctor. And the recommendation was to sleep train her again...let her cry for up to an hour. Train her to go back to sleep on her own. Possibly move Kendall to another room if possible. Lovely.
Sleep training...this worked like a charm when they were 5 or 6 months old. But the thought of letting her scream bloody murder night after night doesn't appeal to me. Their ped. did say we could ease her back into it (checking on her, etc) but that could take several weeks to get her back on track. I figure I will check on her a little this week and then wean and stretch the time between checks again. No picking up. No cuddles. Lay her back down and comfort her and then leave. I'm not against children "crying it out" to a point...I just hope we don't reach that point after a week or two. So here we go again...wish us luck (oh and tips or tricks if you have any).
2 comments:
I wish I had some tips or tricks for you. We went from children who sleep well to one who gets up in the middle of the night go get in our bed and one that gets up in the middle of the night to sleep on the couch. That in and of itself is not bad, but they both need one of us in the room to help them fall asleep, especially J. The problem we have noticed is that if we move the "good" sleeper to another room while trying to sleep train the other one, the one who was good now gets very upset when moving back to the original room to go to sleep. And the newly sleep trained one wakes up, then he just reverts to his old ways. Sigh. Many prayers for you. I am hoping this is a phase.....
Thanks for the sympathy Brenda. Yeah there really isn't anywhere for Kendall to go while we are living here...perhaps that's a blessing according to what happened with you. She seems to not be bothered by it or doesn't cry anyway unless we come in. Last night wasn't bad...no bloody murder just mild crying for 10 minutes in the middle of the night. I hope it continues on that path and toward sleeping through again. I'm sorry that sounds difficult to deal with two having difficulties (I read your post as well on that). I hope they improve as well.
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