Brief(ish) Annabelle Update

I've had a few people ask about Annabelle's sleeping lately, so I thought I would do an update.

It's not great.
It's not good.
It's bad.
...on a good night.

Her sleep started getting worse a few months ago, when we were still co-sleeping for half of the night. She would wake up, kick, toss and turn, and be up for upwards of an hour at a time. We thought she was ready to not co-sleep anymore, and we certainly were at that point, too. Cue the sleep consultant, and round two of sleep training.

Annabelle night weaned really quickly. It took only 3 days, I think. We were told that night weaning would be the trick to her waking up at night--once kids are night weaned, they no longer have anything "good" to wake up for.

Aside from the night weaning, we were really trying to get Annabelle to learn how to fall asleep on her own. We have been doing the "silent put back" method of keeping her in bed. If she awakes and gets out of bed, we put her back in without talking to her or cuddling her, and stand (in her room) by her door until she falls asleep. It's been working fine--she doesn't cry much at all, usually goes back to sleep very quickly.

The part that is NOT fine is still the number of times she is waking up at night. She is usually asleep by 8 at the latest. She wakes up around 10 or 11, then about 1:30, then about 3. Between 3 and 4, she usually wakes up again, and that time is up for 1 or more hours. Awake. Not crying (usually), just awake. It is torture, because of course we are exhausted. We have been taking turns putting her back to bed, sitting in her room. She cries hysterically if we leave the room, so we're not doing that just yet.

Friday night she was up from 11:45 until almost 4. Seriously. No joke. So, after much crying (me, not Annabelle), and talking with Jason, we decided we would let her cry-it-out with checks at 5 minute intervals. It felt wrong, but I felt desperate. I agreed, but said I wanted her to have a check up to make sure she was healthy, first. I took her to convenient care on Saturday, and lo and behold, she has an ear infection. I had NO.IDEA. She wasn't tugging at her ears, wasn't super fussy, nothing. Anyway, the doctor said some kids have lots of ear infections, but if they have a higher pain tolerance, their parents don't know. Was this what was keeping Annabelle up all the time??? So, I got her antibiotic, and we obviously decided against CIO. She's been on the antibiotic for 6 days, but her sleep hasn't changed at all yet.

That Friday night I sent out a distress call email to a group of (mostly) moms in CU, that are all naturally-minded, and generally practice AP with their kids. One of them emailed me suggesting that, ear-infection or not, Annabelle could have a food sensitivity keeping her up at night. She doesn't have many other symptoms, but once I Googled, I was shocked to read about the number of parents whose kids slept through the night suddenly once they cut out whatever food they found out the kiddo was sensitive to.

So, I called the doctor's office, and the nurse thought it was worth a shot to try an elimination diet. Today is day 3 of that. We eliminated basically all foods (seriously, it feels like that) from Annabelle's diet for 7 days, and then we will work them back in one at a time to try and determine if she acts differently (or sleeps differently) when any of them are in her system. It isn't going to be totally fool-proof, because I am still eating normally, but the only time we have seen Annabelle be affected by my eating something and her nursing is with caffeine. Also, 90% of her nutrition is from food she eats, as her nursing is mostly for comfort anymore, and is only a couple of times a day. But, generally speaking, if she has a sensitivity, this should show us something.

We are hoping the antibiotic does it's job, and hoping that whatever (if anything) that she is sensitive to gets out of her system soon, and she starts sleeping. Not just for our own sake, but for hers. More so for hers. The poor girl is tired. She needs her rest to grow, both mentally and physically. I hate the feeling of being exhausted but unable to sleep--I can't imagine how she feels. We are also exhausted...we stay up until 10:30 or so doing our respective work/chores/spending time together, and with all the ups and downs all night, neither of us are sleeping more than about 5 hours a night. We're stressed, tense, and can feel our bodies wearing down. It's exhausting, and it's so, so frustrating that nothing helps Annabelle get the rest that she needs.

I've had some people tell me to just co-sleep with her or nurse her again. I would, I swear, if that would do the trick. The problem is, her poor sleep was happening even with both of those things. :( My mommy-intuition tells me that there is something going on. I can't just let my baby cry herself to sleep. There is a reason she is up, and not sleeping at night. She knows how to put herself back to sleep, she is not nursing at night, and she knows that she will be in her bedroom until morning. She also knows that the only interaction she will get from us is us putting her back in her bed. All of those things alone should equal a kid sleeping at least halfway through the night.

Anyway, that's where we are at. If you could please be praying for our family, we could really use it right now. And okay, this wasn't briefish at all, now that I'm done writing it. Sorry :)