The Comings and Goings of Lil G

Patsy Cline would be proud! Last night’s efforts didn’t go off so well either. I laid her in her crib after she had eaten and left her alone with some of the fading sunlight coming through her window. We tried to go Bink-less at first. She hooted and ‘ain-ed’ for a few minutes before we went into full blown crying. I think I let her go for about 10 minutes from the beginning to the melt-down. I dipped in twice to pat her tummy and shush her. By the third time I got in there, she was crying and hitching so hard I though she was going to vomit. Not pretty. It was scared crying.

I experimented by sticking her thumb in her mouth and she started sucking like crazy. Unfortunately, she’s not quite coordinated enough to keep her thumb in. So I Binked her up. And she fell asleep for about an hour. I think she just wore herself out. Just to keep things consistent with the previous nights, she woke about every 15 minutes between 10 p.m. and midnight. We’re talking full awakenings. She goes from dead asleep to a full yowl in zero seconds. I’m fairly certain the Bink falling out of her mouth is what causes this; however, I’m at a loss to figure out how to fix it. I’ve tried hovering over her and gently removing it when she’s sleeping only for her to wake up protesting. I keep feeling guilty that I brought this upon myself for caving in the hospital and allowing her to have a pacifier in the first place. Let the weaning commence.

So, back she went into her car seat – where she slept until 6:30 a.m. She got up, ate a little, and went back down until almost 10.

Most of my reading on the sleep subject has boiled our sleep problems down to a central point: around 4 months of age, little folks become more aware of their surroundings. This mostly manifests itself in issues with bedtime. Previous crutches like nursing to sleep and waiting until she’s fully asleep before putting her to bed have now backfired and baby wants to know what you’re doing and “hey, why are you putting me in this crib?” Thus the whole self-soothing bit. Geneva has to figure out how to put herself to sleep. I’m hoping I’m only in for a couple weeks of this struggle before she begins to figure it out. Techniques like crying-it-out and Ferberizing are not recommended for a child this young. If we’re still having issues by 6 months, then we really crack down.

As a start to our new regime, I laid Geneva down for her first nap of today without her swaddle. I’ve been wrapping her tight as a burrito for naps, Binking her up and leaving the room. This usually puts her to sleep in record time. So, to get her used to flopping around unencumbered in her crib, I put her in her sleep sack (a modified blanket that she can’t get tangled in) and gave her the pacifier. She grunted around a bit, sucked on the Bink, and I heard it come out of her mouth. She grunted around some more and I waited tensely for the wail. She’s been asleep now for almost half an hour. What a kid!

Man, looking over this, I sound obsessed. I suppose you have to be to some extent. I guess Geneva is my full-time job at the moment so I have to focus on something. I’ve been debating on whether or not to blog here about my own issues with being a stay-at-home-mom. This may not be the forum for it. I’ll have to think about it some more.