Some background about Emma's sleeping:
1) I do ALL of the sleep work, with the sole exception of her naps at daycare and a very occasional nap that Daddy helps her with. This was NOT my choice, but a choice of necessity since Joe was taking classes in the evenings and now is teaching at night, and since we want consistency in her routine, I have to be the only one that does it.
2) I am co-sleeping with Emma. Joe sleeps in another room. Again, this was out of necessity -- he was ill for a time and his coughing was waking her up. And after that, it was because he is much worse than I am when he goes without sleep, and I'd rather be sleep deprived than him because I can't deal with a grumpy husband and grumpy baby. He has been sleeping in another room since she was 3 months old.
3) Until lately, she has not had to have a new diaper at night. We use barrier cream and a liner so that the wetness does not wake her up. The only role Daddy has at night is to change her diaper if she is wet/poops or if she leaks. The last week we've had HUGE leaks and I don't know what's going on with my diapers. I've stripped them twice and that seems not to help. But that's for another post.
4) She reverse-cycles. If kellymom.com is correct and she should be getting about 30 oz of breastmilk a day, she MAYBE eats 10 oz at daycare. At MOST. One day she ate 12 oz and I was in heaven. Most of the time she'll eat 8-9 oz. That means she gets the rest overnight.
5) She DOES sleep through the night. Yes, yes she does. Unless she cries herself awake. She falls asleep between 7-7:30, and when she cries or gets restless, we comfort her BEFORE she wakes up. At night, when she rouses and cries, I try to soothe her by patting her or shushing her, and when that does not work and she gets more riled up, I give her the breast. Typically she'll sleep until 5:30 or 6am. Meaning, she gets 10-11 hours of sleep at night but I have to wake up multiple times to make sure she stays asleep.
6) Issues with naps at daycare continue. If she gets 2 1/2-3 hours of napping, she falls asleep much quicker. Today she had two 30-minute naps, and it took us 30 minutes before she fell asleep. There was about a month-long period where she took a 2-hour nap consistently over the noon hour, and then a 1/2 hour nap in the late afternoon. That has changed and I have no idea why.
7) Nursing time. Since she was about 3 months old, she hasn't nursed longer than 5-6 minutes at a time. She nurses through my let-down, and then will nurse a few more minutes and she's done. At work when I pump, I can get 5+ ounces of breastmilk in less than 10 minutes from the two sides, so I'm assuming she's getting about 4 oz each time she nurses in just one breast. She rarely switches, and she gets very angry when I try to "force" her to drink more. She'll bite me, and I'm not having that.
With that background, here's the gist of the schedule.
5:30 Home, nursing if she hasn't had a bottle at daycare late (sometimes they give her a very late bottle, like at 4:30).
5:30 - 6pm Supper with Mommy & Daddy. She'll usually eat a piece of vegetable (1 oz?), a piece of fruit (1 oz) and then she'll nurse.
6 - 6:30 Quiet play time with Mommy & Daddy. We usually have a 20-minute song that plays on one of her toys that we'll get going around 6:10pm to let her know that it's nearing time for bed.
6:30 - 6:40 Bath time and/or washing time
6:40 - 6:45 Naked time upstairs in her room while Mommy prepps her bedtime diaper and bed
6:45 Bedtime diaper on
6:45 - 6:50/6:55 Nursing
6:55 Bedtime story
7:00 Mommy sings a bedtime song and we rock for 5 minutes. I say to her "we're going to rock for 5 minutes and then it's bedtime."
7:05 I kiss her, tell her I love her, and then I put her in her crib with her favorite blanket and her lovey (a toy bunny).
**If she's had good naps, she'll fall asleep within 5 minutes. I used to need to pat her to comfort her, but now I can just stand there and shush her a little, and she'll fall asleep. On a bad day, I have to pat her, shush her, and occasionally put her back down in the crib after she climbs up to standing.
8:30/9pm Emma cries. If she's left unattended, she starts to scream harder, and cries. She gets hysterical. We go up, she's usually standing in her crib and/or sitting up. Her eyes may be open or still shut, but she's typically still asleep even if her eyes are open. I lay her back down, shush and pat her. Occasionally she'll settle back down within 5 minutes, sometimes she gets more and more hysterical, and I have to pull her out and nurse her. If she wakes up, it takes 30 minutes to get her back to sleep.
If she doesn't wake up at that time, I take her to bed with me between 10-10:30pm. If she's still in the crib, then around 10:30/11pm she cries again. At this point, I just take her to bed and typically she nurses again. She's still drinking well at this point.
11:30/midnight. She gets restless. She starts to kick. I wake up, move her away from me (she's usually cuddled up with me, even if we start the night apart) and wait it out. She screams. She cries. She kicks and writhes around. I shush her and try to pat her. The screaming gets worse. I nurse her, and she goes back to sleep.
2am. More restless kicking. I try to pat her and shush her. Sometimes I ignore her and see if she'll go back to sleep. Lately she's been rolling around, rolling onto her stomach and then rolling back, sometimes she'll try to crawl around. She's asleep this entire time. Then she'll sit up and start to cry, start to scream. I put her back down. She wails and kicks in her sleep until I nurse her again.
4:30am Up and kicking, crying again until nursing.
5am Crying, restless. Typically wants to nurse again.
5:30/6am Usually has her big poo at this point, typically has some gas ahead of time where she'll kick and writhe around. She does not want to nurse at this time. I give up and just have Joe get her a new diaper and I go shower for the day.
7:30 am Last nursing before she goes to daycare.
Ok Mommies... have at it. Deconstruct it for me, tell me what's going on and/or help me figure out what to do. I'm about THIS close to just letting her cry it out, but that would just break my heart. I stand in the hallway in the evenings, just sobbing at times because she won't go to sleep and there's nothing I feel I can do.
