Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Babywise - Day 1

We're doing ok on the Babywise schedule today. Not great, but we're trying.

First mistake was this morning. We're supposed to pick a time for the first feeding every day. Yesterday, I decided on 6:30 a.m. I thought that would be good for when I go back to work. I'll try to get up at 6:00 a.m. and shower, then get Grace up at 6:30 and feed her. Then I can change her clothes and get her diaper bag ready and have her ready to leave with Eric around 7:15 or 7:30 a.m. That will then give me time to finish getting ready and leave for work by 8:00 a.m. It's also close to when she's been waking up, so it sounded good. Anyway, last night was rough. Grace went to bed around 11:00 p.m. (so far so good). She got up at 3:00 a.m. (not too bad). However, maybe her naps from 1:30 to 4:15 p.m. and 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. yesterday made her decide that it was time to stay up at 3 a.m. I got her back to bed at 5:50 a.m. When 6:30 a.m. rolled around, I just couldn't get up and get started. We slept until 8:15 a.m. and that was our first feeding today.

Next came our first "nap time." Three of the Babywise sleep rules are 1. Mom decides when naptime starts and 2. Mom decides when naptime ends. 3. Put baby to bed awake, so she can learn to go to sleep on her own. We tried naptime for an hour, but Grace didn't sleep. She cried the entire hour. I went in to check on her and pat her and let her know I was there every 10 minutes, but apparently my baby doesn't cry herself to sleep. After the hour, Mom decided naptime was over.

The feedings have been on schedule and going well, although the feeding after her first naptime made her want to sleep and we must have awake time after feeding before the next naptime. After her feeding, I put her in the carseat and went to McDonald's to get me some lunch. I came home and ate and she was awake the whole time. When I took her out of her carseat to hold her, she immediately fell asleep in my arms and since it was time for another nap, I just took her to her crib. She stayed asleep for 45 minutes and then woke up with a wet and poopy diaper. It was also about 3 hours since her last feeding, so we just stayed up and we did another feeding.

After that feeding, I put her in her bouncy seat for a few minutes and then went and got her swing. She liked the swing, but fairly quickly fell asleep in it. Again, it was "time" for a nap, so I just took her upstairs. She is currently napping now.

So, while we've been on track with times, I haven't put her in bed awake for 2 of her 3 "naptimes". Also, she's only slept for about 1 hour total today when she should be at about 3 1/2 to 4 hours by now. I'm hoping she'll get the hang of this sleep schedule in the next couple of days. I'm sleepy myself, and since she's not making any noises, I think I'll go try to catch a nap. We'll see how this sleeping thing goes at night. I may have to give in and rock her to sleep, because I can't stay up all night. I'll give it a try for an hour or so though. Wish me luck! I'll continue to update as we progress.

1 comment:

Lisa said...

You're doing great, Jennifer! Take it one day at a time. Grace will get the hang of it & so will you! Good luck.