Time to make a plan to get more sleep

So, I have been moaning a lot recently about Grapie's sleep issues and how tired I am. We saw a paediatricion last week and I had been pinning my hopes on an anwer to why she is so uncomfortable at night and a solution. But we didn't get one, we were told it's just something that she will have to grow out of. I have been feeling very down about the whole thing recently, but today I have decided that I need to try to come up with a solution to help our family get through this, rather than fall apart.

• Get rid of the cot

The first change we are going to make is a practical one, replacing her cot with a single matress on the floor with baby bumpers. Although it is pretty drastic, there are two potential benefits to this. Grapie currently starts the night in her cot but most nights has joined us in bed by 10. We fell into cosleeping a few months ago when I got so tired that I started falling asleep at night while breastfeeding. I realised that I was actually getting more sleep that way and for a while it was working better than staying awake to put her back in her cot only for her to wake up an hour later and go through the whole thing again. But she is a fidgety baby and likes to sleep sideways in the bed meaning that on top of her repeated wakings, we are often awake and uncomfortable even when she is asleep! This plan would give us a spare bed to move to for one of us to get a few hours uninterrupted sleep.

Also I'm hoping that it will be the start of getting her back to sleeping on her own, as I will be able to go to her bed to feed her back to sleep some times. But the main aim will be to get more sleep in the short term so I will have more energy to make more chanfes in the future.

• No cry sleep solution

I used this book by Elizabeth Pantely when Princess was younger, it was how I managed to fet her to start falling asleep by herself. I have read through it before, but the time has come to use it properly for Grapie. The first thing the book recommends is creating a nap and sleep log to get an acturate picture of her sleep patterns. Here is the one I did for G before we saw the paediatricion.

Monday
Naps - morning, fell asleep in car for 5 minutes, woke up crying
Afternoon, fell asleep in car, then carseat put on pram, asleep for 45minutes

Nightime
Breastfed to sleep, woke up when moved to cot so repeated breastfeed to sleep, put in cot by 8pm
10.15- woke up crying, came into bed, fed to sleep
12.45- woke up, tried to settle without milk but woke up fully, attempted to feed to sleep 3 times, awake until 2.30
5.00- woke up, fed back to sleep
7.15 up for day

Tuesday
Naps fell asleep in pram, asleep for approx 1  hour

Nightime
Breastfed to sleep woke up when moved to cot so fed to sleep again, in cot bu 8pm
9pm woke up crying, fed to sleep, put back in cot
11.20 woke up crying came in bed and fed to sleep
1.00 woke up screaming, gave calpol and walked her around to sleep, back in cot at 1.30
4.20 woke up crying, came in bed for milk
5.30 writhing round in pain, daddy cuddled back to sleep
6.15 woke up crying, had milk but then up for day

Wednesday
Naps, morning fell asleep on bed after milk, asleep for 1hour 20minutes
Afternoon, fell asleep in pram, asleep for 30minutes

Nightime
Breastfed to sleep, in cot by 7.44
9.50awake, came to bed for milk
12.30 woke up crying, fed to sleep in bed
1.50 writhing round in pain every 10-30 minutes for the rest of the night
6.00 up for day

So as you can see, we do not get a good night's sleep at all and bear in mind that G is now 13 and a half months.

Grapie is teething at the moment so we will have to wait for that to pass before we implement any changes. But the next stage is to come up with a plan. So watch this space for the next stage and to see how we get on.

Any helpful comments are welcomed

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