The Trixie Update

We got great advice from the doctor regarding Trixie’s sleep schedule: Put her to sleep at 8pm, wake her to feed at 11pm, and then put her back down for the night. This schedule is designed to break Trixie from expecting to eat between midnight and 5am. If she wakes up during that time, we’re only supposed to comfort — but not feed — her.

The first night was an absolute disaster, and left me feeling sick from sleep deprivation. However, the second night was an unparalleled success. She went to sleep on her own at 7:45pm. We woke her at 11pm and put her back down after she took a bottle. She cried at 3:24am. I went in and held her, put her back down, and then she slept until 7:45am. Now we still didn’t get an eight hour block of uninterrupted sleep, but it’s better than anything else that’s come along. Trixie is also happy today after sleeping so well. Let’s just see if we can do it two days in a row.

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Last night was a disaster. Not only did Trixie not sleep through the night, she divided her total sleep time exactly into thirds to maximize the inconvenience. Her 1 am and 4:30 am awakenings were made more painful by the fact that we secretly hoped for a repeat of last night’s uninterrupted 8 hour stretch.

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Sleep-training Trixie this past week has taken a lot of work, and yes, yet another log. For once, this isn’t that outrageous a concept — every how-to sleep book says to keep a log, they just don’t all advise making it web-based. As you might expect, the Sleep Log will soon be added to the site.

Right now we’re just collecting data. We basically had no idea how many hours she slept a day or when she was sleeping. We now have 5 days worth of data and all sorts of trends are becoming clear. For instance she sleeps about 13 hours a day (fantastic), but most of her naps are between 35-40 minutes long (infuriating). This came as a surprise to me, because I was pretty sure she was awake about 22 hours a day. The goal now is to use this data to try to manage her sleep cycles so she doesn’t get so cranky.

Last night was an unexpected treat. Previously she had been sleeping 4 1/2 hours, waking up at 2 or 3 am for a snack, and then sleeping another 4 hours. Last night, however, she slept almost 8 hours. She was extra worn out from a busy Thanksgiving yesterday, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed for a repeat.

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This is too good to be true. Trixie went to sleep by herself for a second time after crying for only 15 minutes. The first time took 40 minutes. I know two measurements don’t make a trend, but hell, I like the trend! If this were Vegas, I would put all my money on the parents - straight up - the baby doesn’t stand a chance. How naive we were to think that a baby could outsmart us, adults.

Editor’s note: I fully plan to recant all of the above in the near future once the system breaks down and Trixie reintroduces the 4-hour scream-a-thon perfected over the past couple of weeks. But right now, the house wins.

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This could become the most practical milestone we have achieved. It took almost 40 minutes of frustrated crying before she fell asleep for a mere 60 minute nap, but that’s a small price to pay in the long run. What’s at stake here is Trixie’s ability to fall sleep by herself and comfort herself. Up to this point, we were only able to put her in the crib when she was already asleep, and she would often wake up in the transfer.

Now we are ready to put her in the crib when she starts exhibiting sleepy behavior — the funniest of which is balling up her hands and rubbing her eyes — and she should learn to go to sleep. Of course, it’s possible this afternoon was just a wishful anomaly, and Trixie might have no intention of going to sleep without a bottle in her mouth or a warm body holding her.

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Sleeping last night was horrible. She went to sleep at 1:00am. Then fed at 4:15, 5:00, 8:15, 9:00 and we finally got up around noon. We both feel sick. She’s happy as a clam.

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We are having a great time here with Trixie. She refuses to sleep more than 2 hours at a time and then she goes into ballistic screaming mode right around 3am. She’ll open her mouth, turn bright red and then scream like we were feeding her feet first into a wood chipper. She screams sooo loud and sooo long that she runs out of scream, and just lies there with her mouth open and her whole body shaking. It’s unnerving to wake up to that.

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