not sleeping

draft post: posted 8/2018

Have I mentioned how much Isabelle is NOT sleeping? I haven’t? Well, Isabelle isn’t sleeping very well lately. Here is our typical night.

Isabelle gets bathed, cereal, milk at about 6:45ish. After that, she MUST be swaddled very tightly, rocked/sang to/sshhhed/rocked more for about twenty minutes before she gives in and falls asleep around 7:45 or so.

She usually wakes up a few times the rest of the evening and needs her paci put back in.

2 AM she wakes up for a feeding and diaper change. Then we resume the swaddle/rocking/singing/shhussing/fussing for a half hour until shes asleep. And if we put her in her crib a minute before shes ready ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. and we must repeat the whole process.

5:30 she wakes up for another feeding/diaper change. Except lately, she is refusing to sleep much after this point. Usually Jazz gets up with her and plays with her or tries to get her to sleep until he has to get ready for work at 7:30ish (which I greatly appreciate). But, because she isn’t properly rested, she is pretty fuss-tastic.

This morning I got her back to sleep at 8. She woke up at 8:15. I fed her more at 9, she went to sleep at 9:30. Only to wake up at 9:45. ARE YOU KIDDING ME, CHILD. We don’t do cat naps in this family, its go big or go home, and I have been known to throw down a 3-4 hour nap on a rainy Sunday. What I can’t figure out is whyyyyyy we can’t teach her to appreciate sleep! Not to mention, most of my day is centered around the fussing/rocking/shhushing/singing part of this cycle.

Everything that I read about a 5-6 month old says she should be sleeping 10-12 hours at night, with about 4 naps per day, maximum awake time about 2 hours at a time. I don’t know what magical baby does this but we need to get the sleeping fairy over here to adminster some dust. I’m trying my hardest to make sure she doesn’t stay awake too long and get overly tired. As soon as I see a sign she is sleepy, its naptime.

I feel like I’m more exhausted now than she was as a newborn and then I think HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE. I figure the 3 hour chunks of sleep I get are great but they just aren’t cutting it. Plus, I can’t be tromping around in my yoga pants and ugg boots all day long, its just not cute.

So, I turn to you, dear friends and readers and strangers alike.

Is this normal? Is this fixable? Do we need to sleep train her? Let her cry? Feed her tylenol PM? (I’m just kidding. I’m afraid someone will read this and call CPS) Is she teething? Growing another foot?