Mamas Gotta Sleep
I don't remember how many weeks post partum I was.
It was 100% a blur.
I wasn't stressed about him eating enough
or sleeping at night. I was stressed that my baby wasn't napping.
In another post, I'll talk all about my PPA/PPD and how this fed into my crying fits about his lack of naps, but I was highly concerned that his brain wasn't going to develop becasuse I couldn't get him to nap.
I was trying so hard not to spend any more money, not to buy another book, because my maternity leave was unpaid aside from short term disability which we'd yet to recieve and had used all of our savings on emergencies already (I wish I'd known how much we would be eating out those days in the NICU/ in the hospital for 3 days).
But at my wits end one morning, in tears, I decided to finally listen to the moms in one of my facebook moms group and buy the Taking Cara Babies newborn class.
That day between nursing and attempting naps I binged the class.
I implemented everything I learned as I went. HE NAPPED! He napped that day and he napped so well!
Steve came home and I collapsed onto him in tears,
"honey what's wrong?"
"I'm SO HAPPY," "that was the best money I spent and it was so worth it! He napped!"
UGH best feeling!
You see I didn't really understand sleep cues until it was too late
I didn't understand how to use the 5S's, even though I read Dr. Karp's book Happiest Baby on the Block. The Snoo was GREAT once he was asleep, but I was missing crucial signs about WHEN to have my baby nap.
I was too busy trying to follow the Mom's on Call schedule without knowing WTF I was doing.
Jensen became a pretty awesome sleeper.
Around 12 weeks or so we moved him to his room because he and my husband were keeping me awake and I'm pretty sure Steve's snoring and Nora jumping on and off the bed were disturbing Jensen.
Our house is pretty small so having our doors open with him in the room next to us is barely his own room.
But about 2 weeks ago night sleep turned into torture.
Like I'm talking warfare like torture.
You know they use sleep deprivation in torture? YEP they do so you're literally being tortured (unintentionally) by your child.
Every 1-2 hours Jensen was awake INCONSOLABLE crying. He wasn't hungry, that I knew, but we had to rock him ALL the way to sleep and then when we put him down he'd SCREAM.
This was the little boy who weeks ago I could put down drowsy and he'd babble himself to sleep.
Now we were spending HOURS getting him to sleep for 30 min for naps and 1-2 hours for sleep.
It was a nightmare.
No, actually it wasn't because we were awake. A nightmare would have been better, TBH.
I was googling, I was looking to see if I could find teeth, I was worried he was sick, I mean literally everything. He was so overtired he was beyond tired.
I didn't know what to do, we'd been using the Snoo, we were trying to transition and finally I decided it was time to trust Cara gain.
I'm going to be honest, I was nervous because there is crying involved.
I didn't think my mama heart would be able to deal, but I was assure there are alternative methods for mamas who may not be able to deal with the crying but it would probably take longer.
We implemented the class this past Friday. I'm not going to give away any proprietary information, and I'm happy to answer any questions I can, but I'm not going to share the program or give you the info for free. I believe in supporting other women, and this means supporting her business by allowing others to purchase the program. If you want to share with someone else, that is totally on you, just not something i feel comfortable doing.
Friday night:
Okay we can do this.
We did our nighttime routine that we started when he was like 5 weeks old
I was really afraid of the tears and the crying.
Don't get me wrong, it's hard.
It was hard to listen to him cry even though I knew it was only for 5 minutes, or 10 minutes, it was so hard.
I cried because I knew he was growing up.
I cried because I felt so bad that he was crying.
But then I reminded myself that he's crying out of protest: he's not sad, he's not hungry, he knows he's loved, he just doesn't like it right now.
Now this MAY NOT be for everyone that is OKAY. I fully believe you have to do what is right for you and your family. Taking Cara Babies DOES offer some other alternatives but they take longer and she said it's way less likely to work. I just kept reminding myself that he spent HOURS crying the nights before while I held him and rocked him, so it really wasn't much different. He could basically cry a little bit for a few nights or cry every night in my arms while I didn't get any sleep either, and as a working mom, my lack of sleep was scaring me.
I was afraid I'd get in a car accident, or fall asleep holing/feeding him, To me it was worth It and he still gives me the BIGGEST smiles when he wakes up.
I definitely recommend looking into Taking Cara Babies if you're at your wits end or just want to help your baby sleep better. She also has tons of free tips on her instagram. To me, being a good mom means being a good me. This means getting SLEEP and so much brain development happens while babies sleep so HE needs it as much as me. Cara says her program comes from the science of the nurse and the heart of a mom - I completely see that!
In other news we're currently trying to pack up our house to put it on the market and I'm SO overwhelmed. Can someone do it for me??
We need to pack and repair things and I have no idea where to put things or what to do. I really don't want to spend money on a pod - it's expensive! but I think it's what we're going to have to do!
Buying and selling is so stressful - i'm worried even with our pre-approval the contingency won't look good but maybe it will be fine WHO KNOWS! We're also considering renting for about a year to a year and a half THEN buying. It's a lot to consider.
Do you have experience with buying and selling? What do you recommend? What are your tips?
It was 100% a blur.
I wasn't stressed about him eating enough
or sleeping at night. I was stressed that my baby wasn't napping.
In another post, I'll talk all about my PPA/PPD and how this fed into my crying fits about his lack of naps, but I was highly concerned that his brain wasn't going to develop becasuse I couldn't get him to nap.
I was trying so hard not to spend any more money, not to buy another book, because my maternity leave was unpaid aside from short term disability which we'd yet to recieve and had used all of our savings on emergencies already (I wish I'd known how much we would be eating out those days in the NICU/ in the hospital for 3 days).
But at my wits end one morning, in tears, I decided to finally listen to the moms in one of my facebook moms group and buy the Taking Cara Babies newborn class.
That day between nursing and attempting naps I binged the class.
I implemented everything I learned as I went. HE NAPPED! He napped that day and he napped so well!
Steve came home and I collapsed onto him in tears,
"honey what's wrong?"
"I'm SO HAPPY," "that was the best money I spent and it was so worth it! He napped!"
UGH best feeling!
You see I didn't really understand sleep cues until it was too late
I didn't understand how to use the 5S's, even though I read Dr. Karp's book Happiest Baby on the Block. The Snoo was GREAT once he was asleep, but I was missing crucial signs about WHEN to have my baby nap.
I was too busy trying to follow the Mom's on Call schedule without knowing WTF I was doing.
Jensen became a pretty awesome sleeper.
Around 12 weeks or so we moved him to his room because he and my husband were keeping me awake and I'm pretty sure Steve's snoring and Nora jumping on and off the bed were disturbing Jensen.
Our house is pretty small so having our doors open with him in the room next to us is barely his own room.
But about 2 weeks ago night sleep turned into torture.
Like I'm talking warfare like torture.
You know they use sleep deprivation in torture? YEP they do so you're literally being tortured (unintentionally) by your child.
Every 1-2 hours Jensen was awake INCONSOLABLE crying. He wasn't hungry, that I knew, but we had to rock him ALL the way to sleep and then when we put him down he'd SCREAM.
This was the little boy who weeks ago I could put down drowsy and he'd babble himself to sleep.
Now we were spending HOURS getting him to sleep for 30 min for naps and 1-2 hours for sleep.
It was a nightmare.
No, actually it wasn't because we were awake. A nightmare would have been better, TBH.
I was googling, I was looking to see if I could find teeth, I was worried he was sick, I mean literally everything. He was so overtired he was beyond tired.
I didn't know what to do, we'd been using the Snoo, we were trying to transition and finally I decided it was time to trust Cara gain.
I'm going to be honest, I was nervous because there is crying involved.
I didn't think my mama heart would be able to deal, but I was assure there are alternative methods for mamas who may not be able to deal with the crying but it would probably take longer.
We implemented the class this past Friday. I'm not going to give away any proprietary information, and I'm happy to answer any questions I can, but I'm not going to share the program or give you the info for free. I believe in supporting other women, and this means supporting her business by allowing others to purchase the program. If you want to share with someone else, that is totally on you, just not something i feel comfortable doing.
Friday night:
Okay we can do this.
We did our nighttime routine that we started when he was like 5 weeks old
- Bath
- lotion, ointments, etc (for his eczema)
- jammies
- story (sometimes this is before bath, it is okay it doesn't effect him)
- songs and nursing
- zipadee zip
- bed
The ONLY thing we changed was turning on the white noise machine during his lotion/jammies/ story time. He fell asleep nursing and roused a bit when I swaddled him. I put him down around 7:35 and told him goodnight and we love him and we'd see him in the morning.
First wake up: 10:35 with 2 check ins and he was back to sleep for a few minutes at 10:50
Second wake up: 11:15 with one intervention at 11:30 and he was back to sleep before we had to check in again
Holy. Shit. Was that it? Was that our first night?
I was in shock I was prepared for a shitshow after him being in the Snoo and being used to the movement and those white noises. I knew this was PROBABLY too good to be true.
Saturday night:
Okay this disaster was our fault. It is our 8 year anniversary on Tuesday (OMG how?!) And we made reservations for 5:30pm but we were about 30 minutes late because we forgot things at home, we hit traffic, it was just a bad situation.
We made it home by 8 so he wasn't in bed until 9:15. That's a no-no. He's supposed to be in bed between 7and 8 and he does better with an earlier bed time especially because he has to be up by 6:30am during the week until we move closer to our work places.
We followed our routine
He went to sleep NO PROBLEM.
But then the wake ups began:
1st wake up 9:13 - went right back to sleep on his own
2nd wake up 3:45 am - we had to pop in at 3:50, 4:00, and 4:15 then he kind of fell asleep and then . . .
3rd wake up 5:11 and we had to intervene at 5:20, 5:36, 5:42, 5:52, 6:07, and 6:22 (there are reasons we didn't go in yet to get him up, he wouldn't have been in bed long enough based on his bedtime etc. )and then he slept until we went in to get him up.
3rd wake up 5:11 and we had to intervene at 5:20, 5:36, 5:42, 5:52, 6:07, and 6:22 (there are reasons we didn't go in yet to get him up, he wouldn't have been in bed long enough based on his bedtime etc. )and then he slept until we went in to get him up.
Okay THAT was rough.
We knew it was probably because he was up to late, and the fact that he needed a diaper change AND the fact that he couldn't finish the night in his zipadee zip, so we tried not to get too discouraged and committed to an earlier Sunday night bedtime.
Sunday night:
In bed by 7:35 and followed our routine first.
He looked at me and I told him I love him, goodnight, and he put himself straight to sleep.
He slept ALL DANG NIGHT. A few times on the camera I saw him stirring but he soothed himself right back to sleep!
He started stirring around 5:15am - but he would suck on his hand and either fall back to sleep or talk to himself calmly or grab at his feet. Between 5:15 and 6:15 he was in and out of sleep but was being calm and quiet in his bed until I went in and got him.
I don't want to count my chickens yet but it's SO reassuringly different from my experience the last few weeks.
I was really afraid of the tears and the crying.
Don't get me wrong, it's hard.
It was hard to listen to him cry even though I knew it was only for 5 minutes, or 10 minutes, it was so hard.
I cried because I knew he was growing up.
I cried because I felt so bad that he was crying.
But then I reminded myself that he's crying out of protest: he's not sad, he's not hungry, he knows he's loved, he just doesn't like it right now.
Now this MAY NOT be for everyone that is OKAY. I fully believe you have to do what is right for you and your family. Taking Cara Babies DOES offer some other alternatives but they take longer and she said it's way less likely to work. I just kept reminding myself that he spent HOURS crying the nights before while I held him and rocked him, so it really wasn't much different. He could basically cry a little bit for a few nights or cry every night in my arms while I didn't get any sleep either, and as a working mom, my lack of sleep was scaring me.
I was afraid I'd get in a car accident, or fall asleep holing/feeding him, To me it was worth It and he still gives me the BIGGEST smiles when he wakes up.
I definitely recommend looking into Taking Cara Babies if you're at your wits end or just want to help your baby sleep better. She also has tons of free tips on her instagram. To me, being a good mom means being a good me. This means getting SLEEP and so much brain development happens while babies sleep so HE needs it as much as me. Cara says her program comes from the science of the nurse and the heart of a mom - I completely see that!
In other news we're currently trying to pack up our house to put it on the market and I'm SO overwhelmed. Can someone do it for me??
We need to pack and repair things and I have no idea where to put things or what to do. I really don't want to spend money on a pod - it's expensive! but I think it's what we're going to have to do!
Buying and selling is so stressful - i'm worried even with our pre-approval the contingency won't look good but maybe it will be fine WHO KNOWS! We're also considering renting for about a year to a year and a half THEN buying. It's a lot to consider.
Do you have experience with buying and selling? What do you recommend? What are your tips?
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