Troubleshooting Sleep Part I: Mara 3 - Parents 1
Mara is getting more and more attached to me which is heart warming on my side, but I fear a little tough on hers. During our holiday trip we had several episodes of her getting upset and crying when she felt that someone was taking her away from mommy. These happen mostly in the evening, when she gets afraid that she'll get sleepy and I won't be next to her on time to help her go to bed for the night.
This started happening after we have been trying to help her sleep on her own, and to give mommy a break, which involved other people trying to rock her to sleep away from mommy.
Here's a commentary on how our sleep troubleshooting has been going.
What we were trying to do:
help Mara sleep on her own by putting her down when drowsy, not fully asleep
What Mara learned:
When daddy or mommy or anyone else rocks baby to sleep, they are planning to put her down, so Mara needs to stay awake as long as she can to prevent that. So she does, from a usual 10 min rocking to get her fully relaxed and ready to lay down on her back, we are now rocking for 40 min with baby barely awake, just enough so she can stir as soon as you try to put her down.
What Mara learned:
When daddy or mommy or anyone else rocks baby to sleep, they are planning to put her down, so Mara needs to stay awake as long as she can to prevent that. So she does, from a usual 10 min rocking to get her fully relaxed and ready to lay down on her back, we are now rocking for 40 min with baby barely awake, just enough so she can stir as soon as you try to put her down.
Mara 1 - Parents 0
What we were trying to do:
Get her less used to going to sleep by nursing and then unlatching her before she is asleep. The unlatching involves sliding a finger in the corner of her mouth so that she can't keep the suction, which makes her stop nursing.
What Mara learned:
When mommy nurses her, there's a high risk that at any point in time she will try to unlatch. Thus Mara must protect the latch at any cost. This can be achieved by putting either her whole arm on top of her face covering everything, or simply her hand right around the latch. If mommy foolishly attempts to interfere, baby squeezes hard and doesn't let go, cause after all this is her latch and she is working hard at it. Also, stay awake dream feeding forever because if baby falls asleep who knows where that boob will disappear!
Get her less used to going to sleep by nursing and then unlatching her before she is asleep. The unlatching involves sliding a finger in the corner of her mouth so that she can't keep the suction, which makes her stop nursing.
What Mara learned:
When mommy nurses her, there's a high risk that at any point in time she will try to unlatch. Thus Mara must protect the latch at any cost. This can be achieved by putting either her whole arm on top of her face covering everything, or simply her hand right around the latch. If mommy foolishly attempts to interfere, baby squeezes hard and doesn't let go, cause after all this is her latch and she is working hard at it. Also, stay awake dream feeding forever because if baby falls asleep who knows where that boob will disappear!
Mara 2 - Parents 0
What we were trying to do:
Get baby used to other people putting her to sleep at night. With mommy out of the room, daddy or grandma rocks the baby lovingly and sings and does any other soothing activity they can think of till baby falls asleep.
What Mara learned:
If it is getting close to evening time, mommy becomes an elusive runaway creature. Mara's task is to make sure that mommy doesn't disappear because who knows when or whether she will return, and baby needs mommy to sleep.
Thus Mara watches like a hawk between her cute smiles and giggles at people, and as soon as she seems to be drawn out of the room or mommy is no longer in sight, she cries.
This is not the little yelp cry that she usually does to let you know you need to change what you're doing to entertain her.
This is a quick paced race to full on crying, starting with a little upset lower lip and ending with tears streaming down her cheeks if you let it happen for more than a little bit. All of it lightly sprinkled with Meh!s that increase in frequency throughout.
The closer we are to bed time, the more pressing the need and the more persistent the watch.
Daddy's solution for remediation:
Declare mommy the central point of gravity. Baby and her "carrier vessels" can move about in slow rotation, but must be forever faced toward mommy. The orbits can vary greatly in diameter and shape, as long as direct line of sight is maintained and we are staying in the same room with mommy.
Get baby used to other people putting her to sleep at night. With mommy out of the room, daddy or grandma rocks the baby lovingly and sings and does any other soothing activity they can think of till baby falls asleep.
What Mara learned:
If it is getting close to evening time, mommy becomes an elusive runaway creature. Mara's task is to make sure that mommy doesn't disappear because who knows when or whether she will return, and baby needs mommy to sleep.
Thus Mara watches like a hawk between her cute smiles and giggles at people, and as soon as she seems to be drawn out of the room or mommy is no longer in sight, she cries.
This is not the little yelp cry that she usually does to let you know you need to change what you're doing to entertain her.
This is a quick paced race to full on crying, starting with a little upset lower lip and ending with tears streaming down her cheeks if you let it happen for more than a little bit. All of it lightly sprinkled with Meh!s that increase in frequency throughout.
The closer we are to bed time, the more pressing the need and the more persistent the watch.
Daddy's solution for remediation:
Declare mommy the central point of gravity. Baby and her "carrier vessels" can move about in slow rotation, but must be forever faced toward mommy. The orbits can vary greatly in diameter and shape, as long as direct line of sight is maintained and we are staying in the same room with mommy.
Mara 3 - Parents 0
What we were trying to do:
Help baby understand that she doesn't need to nurse every hour at night.
Daddy is taking the evening shift from 8pm to midnight and picks baby up on her hourly wakings and rocks her to sleep if it has been less than three hours since the last feeding. If longer, ask mommy to nurse the baby (which invariably makes Mara fall asleep).
What Mara learned:
At night she might magically wake up in daddy's arms, even though she was with mommy right before falling asleep. That's OK cause daddy loves her and sings softly and walks around the room with her in the dark. He's warm, and there's some nice shadows in the bedroom which feel safe cause daddy is holding Mara. Except when pangs of hunger or simply of missing mommy hit the baby, at which point it's Meh! time.
Mommy comes when you Meh!
Mara feels safe and often falls asleep with daddy.
Help baby understand that she doesn't need to nurse every hour at night.
Daddy is taking the evening shift from 8pm to midnight and picks baby up on her hourly wakings and rocks her to sleep if it has been less than three hours since the last feeding. If longer, ask mommy to nurse the baby (which invariably makes Mara fall asleep).
What Mara learned:
At night she might magically wake up in daddy's arms, even though she was with mommy right before falling asleep. That's OK cause daddy loves her and sings softly and walks around the room with her in the dark. He's warm, and there's some nice shadows in the bedroom which feel safe cause daddy is holding Mara. Except when pangs of hunger or simply of missing mommy hit the baby, at which point it's Meh! time.
Mommy comes when you Meh!
Mara feels safe and often falls asleep with daddy.
Mara 3 - Parents 1
Note: Most of these ideas came from us, our pediatrician, people we've talked to, or the no-cry sleep solution book we have.
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