A mystery of infant sleep.

Some of you have seen my facebook post about Sarah reverting back to newborn sleep habits.  You know? Waking every 3 hours, not understanding that the nice dark room and soothing music means "sleep time" not "let's keep smiling until we win mommy and daddy over and they pick me up time".  That was our life last week.  And it is hard sometimes because she's just so darn happy when she wakes up.  It's hard to be annoyed that she wants to play.  But still, we need to be consistent.  So I came up with a few rules when it comes to training Sarah that night time is for sleeping and not playing: 

1. No talking.  I don't talk to her when she wakes up at night.  When she wakes up from napping or in the morning I greet her very happily and start chattering with her.  Not so at midnight or 3 A.M.  She gets the silent treatment.
2. No leaving the room.  If I do have to pick her up because she is wide awake, she doesn't get to go into the living room with the other adults or play with her toys.  Her choices are being held by mommy or daddy or laying in her crib.
3. No picking her up if possible.  I try to stroke her face or rub her back or reposition her before I will pick her up.  But sometimes those little feet go sky high immediately as she starts cooing at her toes.

See? Nothing ridiculous or unmanageable and usually we can get her to go back to sleep fairly quickly when we use these.  And these are just our guidelines when it comes to waking up for no reason.  There have been an occasion or two that she has woken up completely terrified.  On those rare occasions it was necessary to talk to her and reassure her that mommy and daddy were there and she was safe.  Once she heard our voices and felt us holding her, she went right back to sleep.

But then there was last night.
Last night. Ugh. I'm not really sure where to start with last night.  First off, she went to bed completely exhausted and was dead asleep.  I remember thinking that it was going to be one of those really easy nights.  But no sooner had I laid her little head down that she woke up. And woke up with energy.  I have no idea where that burst of energy came from, but it was there and there was no fighting it.  So I let her talk to her mobile.  She played for probably 30 min before it occurred to me to capture the moment on video.  Then the first video somehow got deleted and I took this one...



Sarah is like her momma when it comes to sleep.  You reach the giddy/hyper stage and then you crash hard.  So I knew I just had to wait it out and she would start crashing.  Which she did.  So two hours past her normal bed time I put her back to sleep.  Which lasted 30 min. before she was tossing and turning and whining.  Usually if she does this, we can give her the pacifier and she'll settle.  Last night?  Last night, not so much.  She tossed and turned and tossed and turned and whimpered and whined and whimpered and whined.  Crazy thing is, she was asleep the whole time!  Eyes firmly shut.  Then the whimpering turned into crying.  At this point I'm trying to think if something could be wrong.  I gave her gas drops, which seemed to help some, but not much.  She didn't have a fever.  Her diaper was still clean.  But then when I picked her up she just laid her head directly on my heart slept with only a couple soft whimpers.  Poor baby.  I kept trying to put her back to sleep with the same result.  By the way this whole process took about an hour, so we did it for a long time.  Over and over.  Then it occurred to me that maybe her reflux had come back.  So I put a pillow under her mattress to prop her up some.  When I put her down on it I got the only two hours of sleep I got last night.  But after two hours, even that didn't help.  She never fully woke up (excluding her hyper play time).

So I didn't get much sleep, she did... kinda... but not really.  She woke up with deep lines under her eyes (one of the dead give aways that she's tired) but happy.  I fed her and let her play, but I'm still wondering if something isn't wrong.  I hope my baby hasn't caught something.  Mike usually watches the girls over at his mom's house during the summer.  She has been sick for the past two weeks, but we don't know with what.  I'm hoping today will go smoothly for him.  Any suggestions are appreciated.  I don't think it's teething.  It could be a growth spurt.  Lord knows she's growing like a flower. I just hope she starts feeling better and gets back to her happy self. 


P.S.  It's definitely days like these that I wish I was a stay-at-home mom.  I feel like she needs me and I'm not able to be with her.  Not that Mike doesn't take excellent care of her... but you other moms understand.  I want to be with my little when she's not feeling good....