Operation: Get Renee to Sleep

I am tired.

I have been tired for 9 months, 1 week and 2 days.  Some days are worse than others of course, but basically, I haven't gotten a good night sleep since Renee was born.  Well, that's not entirely true, she slept 9 hours straight on Sunday, November 21st.  You might think it's strange that I remember the date, but it was so miraculous that I might just make it into a personal holiday.  Most nights though she wakes up every 3 hours and I nurse her back to sleep each time.

Here is a typical night: I put her to bed at 8pm and I go to bed at 9:30pm.  She wakes up at around 11pm, 3am and 6am every night.  It takes me about 20 minutes to nurse her back to sleep each time, and then another 5 to 10 minutes for me to fall asleep after my head hits the pillow.  I stay up after the 6am feeding though.  She usually sleeps for another hour or two after that, and I use that time to get ready in the morning.

If you haven't already done the math, I am getting about 7 hours of sleep in a 9 hour period.  That might not sound too bad, many people do fine on 6 or 7 hours of sleep, 6 or 7 hours of continuous sleep that is.  It's amazing how important that is.  My 7 hours is interrupted twice on a good night, and that's not even counting if one of the dogs has to go to the bathroom, which of course is NEVER at a time when I'm already up.

Everyone's advice: "Just let her cry."  Well I can't do that.  I've tried.  It hurts me.  Physically.  Really, it does.

So, my new plan is to take out one nursing session at a time, and replace it with just holding and rocking her to sleep.  This week (or however long it takes her to get used to it) I'm not nursing her when she wakes up at 11pm.  My hope is that she just won't wake up at that time any more.  If I'm not nursing her, then there's no point, right?  Then, when we (really just me) are ready,  I'll take out the 3am one, and eventually she will just sleep through the night.  That's the plan and I'm sticking to it.

Renee does NOT like this plan!  It has only been two nights so far.  Both times it took me about 20 minutes to get her to go to sleep; holding strong through her screaming, pushing and back arching, all part of her fight to get her face to my boobs.  The whole time telling myself that if I give in and nurse her, then I lose and I will never get a good night sleep, ever again!

Both nights, as soon as I put her down in her bed she woke up and started screaming again.  Another 20 minutes of rocking, singing and shushing later and another try at putting her down and she woke up again!  The second time though her crying was much less intense, and I was too tired to continue the process so I just let her cry it out, which only took about 10 minutes.  I HATE doing that, but I can tolerate it when she's not screaming.  If it's just soft crying and I'm completely exhausted, then and only then, can I handle letting her cry herself to sleep.  Desperate times, desperate measures, or something like that.

So, wish me good luck in my endeavor to get Renee to sleep longer, and in turn, get more sleep myself.  I know my way seems like the hard way of doing it, and maybe not the best, but it's what I'm comfortable with.