What a steep learning curve Ella and I have been on!
The first hurdle, learning how to breastfeed, we've tackled without effort. Now we're learning about sleeping.
Yesterday I was at my wits end after hardly having slept at all that night. Ella was very unsettled that morning too and every time she'd start crying, I'd cry too. I was just that exhausted. I didn't think I could survive another night/day like that. I also got increasingly cranky with Ella and could not understand how she could cope with so little sleep.
I consulted some useful brochures and my baby care book and realised that I had misread the signs Ella was giving me. I concluded that she was very tired too. Before I didn't know that jerky movements for example were signs of tiredness. I thought it meant she was wide awake and did not want sleep...
I ended up calling Tressillian, the NSW parenting hotline, for advice. They were great and told me to do whatever it took to get her to sleep for a few hours and break that cycle of falling asleep at the breast and then being too tired to continue sleeping when I put her down. Even if that meant holding her for a few hours.
... I'm going to have to continue this later, cause Ella's crying....
So, they told me to forget about trying to not enforce bad habits (ie. holding her while she sleeps), cos that the main thing was to get her some sleep and nothing else mattered.
I thought it was great advice. Ella ended up falling asleep on my chest. After an hour I finally put her beside me in bed and had an hour sleep myself before she woke up.
She still didn't sleep all that much last night, but I just felt much calmer knowing that it's all normal and that Ella needs to learn how to sleep and I need to learn how to read her body language and ask people's advice. We'll get there.
And today she had two good sleeps in her crib (that's a first!). The second time I even managed to get her to sleep after putting her down while she was still awake. Both times she woke up at least once and got herself back to sleep without me having to comfort her. A huge success!
The first hurdle, learning how to breastfeed, we've tackled without effort. Now we're learning about sleeping.
Yesterday I was at my wits end after hardly having slept at all that night. Ella was very unsettled that morning too and every time she'd start crying, I'd cry too. I was just that exhausted. I didn't think I could survive another night/day like that. I also got increasingly cranky with Ella and could not understand how she could cope with so little sleep.
I consulted some useful brochures and my baby care book and realised that I had misread the signs Ella was giving me. I concluded that she was very tired too. Before I didn't know that jerky movements for example were signs of tiredness. I thought it meant she was wide awake and did not want sleep...
I ended up calling Tressillian, the NSW parenting hotline, for advice. They were great and told me to do whatever it took to get her to sleep for a few hours and break that cycle of falling asleep at the breast and then being too tired to continue sleeping when I put her down. Even if that meant holding her for a few hours.
... I'm going to have to continue this later, cause Ella's crying....
So, they told me to forget about trying to not enforce bad habits (ie. holding her while she sleeps), cos that the main thing was to get her some sleep and nothing else mattered.
I thought it was great advice. Ella ended up falling asleep on my chest. After an hour I finally put her beside me in bed and had an hour sleep myself before she woke up.
She still didn't sleep all that much last night, but I just felt much calmer knowing that it's all normal and that Ella needs to learn how to sleep and I need to learn how to read her body language and ask people's advice. We'll get there.
And today she had two good sleeps in her crib (that's a first!). The second time I even managed to get her to sleep after putting her down while she was still awake. Both times she woke up at least once and got herself back to sleep without me having to comfort her. A huge success!
Lin
