Warning: heavy complaining ahead. When we were trying to get pregnant these are the kind of posts I hated reading. Please feel free to skip.
If I had a good night’s sleep for every time someone asks us if Goldie is sleeping through the night yet, I would be very well rested. But answering that question is beginning to feel absurd. No, Goldie does not sleep through the night. She’s 11 weeks old, we have zero expectation that she’s going to sleep that long. But not only is she not sleeping for 10 hours a night as apparently these people’s children have (I mean, I’ll excuse the single 50-something gay guy from Fern’s choir, but most people who ask this absurd and pointless question actually have children), she still will not sleep at night unless we are holding her. All. Night. Long. Furthermore, she’s up for 1-2 hours for most feedings (Fern bears the brunt of this) and some nights she just cries (not all nights, thank god, but those are definitely the most soul-draining so they stay with me). In fact, starting at around 6 or 7pm, she cries and fusses and is generally a cranky ball of crankitude.
Maybe I’m just extra bitter right now because yesterday was my birthday and Fern had an evening rehearsal so I was home with Goldie all evening while she cried and fussed and spit the bottle back at me while arching her back and wailing so enthusiastically that she didn’t stop to breath and I basically whined at her to stop, “Goldie it’s my Birthday. Whhhhhyyyyyyy are you crrrrrying? Stopppppppppppppppp ittttttttt.” Then I cried and then I got a dozen facebook messages about how this must be my best Birthday ever and I felt guilty for thinking it was really, really not (sure, globally it was, but we were out of money for presents because of maternity leave and the baby was having a medium-grade fussy day and I was tired and then there was the evening). I find that when I start feeling sorry for myself and whining at the baby it’s really time for a break because that is not the parent I want to be. Luckily Fern came home and I zoned out in front of the tv while licking my wounds then mostly got over it.
It’s not all bad at all. Goldie has started smiling a lot more and sometimes almost laughing which is thrilling and can jolt me out of a bad mood. And she is more alert and interactive and it gives me hope that she’ll start to resemble a human soon. I think it’s my looming return to work date (Jan 30th) and Fern’s recent dip back into the working world that has me scared right now. I feel like we’re barely keeping our heads above water right now and I can’t really imagine being up and dressed and doing math and putting together sentences every day while spending nights like this. Also I’m supposed to take Goldie with me to work 2 days a week but right now she’s so fussy and so ambivalent about taking a bottle that feels impossible. However, we don’t really have a childcare backup plan. So I’m worried about that.
I’m also worried because we were hoping once Goldie was 2 months old or so she’d start to be able to sleep on her own a little. I’m not talking about sleeping in her crib or even her cosleeper. I’m more than happy to have her in our bed but I just want her to sleep not in our arms. It seems like such a small request but I have no idea how to get there. Part of the problem is that every time we try to put her down at night she freaks out (sometimes for hours) so it’s very unappealing to try. We know that we can get some sleep if we’re holding her and so it’s hard to pick the option that guarantees that we won’t sleep. So I don’t really know where to begin but it feels less like Goldie’s not going to come to this on her own. We are not interested in any solution that involves letting her cry – it’s not our philosophy and she’s too young. But we’re going to have to figure this out one day. The good news is that she’s started to let us put her in a bouncy seat or swing for short bursts during the day so at least we’re not holding her 24 hours a day, as was the case not too long ago.
You know that I’m grateful and filled with love every single day for Goldie so I don’t have to include a paragraph about that, right?
Oh, Olive. I’m sorry. LG was like that…I don’t think I’m exaggerating much to say she screamed for 7 months straight. I know that you and the ped opted not to do reflux meds…but is it worth trying them to see if it makes a difference? I wish I had some advice. Does she sleep in the carseat? I used that option a lot with LG. The constant holding, yes, it is brutal. Tiny Boy also frequently takes an hour or more for the feeding/burping/fussing in the middle of the night, so even though he’s sleeping in longer stretches, I’m not…
Happy birthday… I hope it gets easier soon.
*huuugs* you are not alone. n was like that, so very much. In fact, I just went back and looked at a post from when she was ~2 months old, very similar to this. It did, eventually pass. I’m not sure precisely when – she was sleeping nights in her crib by the time I was scheduled to go back to work, when she was a little over 3 months – around 15 weeks – but past that, it’s all a blur. Just know that it WILL pass, and you WILL be okay. Do what you need to do to get by. And having a crap day on your birthday doesn’t mean you don’t recognize all the wonderful things that have happened to you this year. ♥
Sounds so much like how HP was. It’s so hard. I went back to work after 8 weeks and felt like I was in a haze for months. Things turned a corner around 7 months but damn it’s hard.
It does get better. I’m sure you know that, but I thought it might help to hear it. I’m sorry it is so rough right now. You have a right to complain and it is especially hard when you add the pressure of feeling ungrateful. Parenting is hard and no one is grateful 100% of the time. You have a right to complain when something is hard, and this is so hard. Hang in there. Also, there were so many things I worried my dd would never outgrow or figure out on her own and I stressed about how we were going to break this habit or that one, and amazingly, many of them she did figure out on her own, or our efforts to change them ended up not being as bad as I thought. try to focus on today and what will help get you through this day and if at all possible, try to let tomorrow take care of itself. I’m sure you know you need to stop worrying, if only it were so easy, especially when you are sleep deprived and could use some quiet me time, or alone time with your so. Still, it gets better.
Melissa in Durham
This sounds all too familiar. That newborn phase is so, so hard. And especially so if you happen to get a baby who is a “frisky fritter” (our lactation consultant’s phrase to describe babies who are particularly impatient about not getting their needs met THISVERYSECOND).
My memory is that life overall improved at 3 months. And then again by 6 months. And by 12 months I thought we just might survive. The first few weeks (months?) of being back at work were rough, but that got better relatively quickly.
I also highly reccommend this post about how hard this parenting gig is and the guilt we sometimes feel for not Enjoying Every Second of it:
http://momastery.com/blog/2012/01/04/2011-lesson-2-dont-carpe-diem/
I ditto the wondering about looking into the anti-reflux meds. My son’s arching/screaming decreased so much once he was on them, and the quality of life for our whole family improved.
And I second Melissa’s suggestion to do whatever you need to do to get through this crazy period, and not worry too much about the long-term implications of things. You’ll figure those things out when you get there (and you’ll be doing it on a lot more sleep).
It is hard. And it’s hard for a long time. When you have days like that on your birthday–yep, it sucks! I’m sorry. The twins were all that and more.
It does really sound like she has classic reflux. I know you are unwilling to put her on meds for it, but when you describe her spitting out the bottle–and especially arching her back–that indicates she is in pain while you are feeding her. It hurts. She is probably crying because it hurts to eat and crying because it hurts to be hungry (because she can’t eat enough) and crying when she’s put in the crib because it hurts to lay down when you have reflux.
We went through all of that. It was hellish. And then we found Zantac.
Maybe you should just try it and see?
I hope it gets better one way or another.
I should clarify that the arching is not typical and also we are not unwilling to medicate Goldie if she needs it. But her symptoms, though frustrating, actually don’t always play out like reflux. We actually think her crying is related to gas a lot of the time. It’s likely that she does have at least mild reflux but the symptoms that really seem like reflux do not happen daily.
ditto everyone who’s suggested reflux meds. if they don’t help, you can stop. i was against the axid, but it helped bunny a lot. we’ve stopped it now, but it was really worth it even for his mild reflux. coupled with the gas, it was just too much for him to handle.
Sorry you’re going through that … but I agree w/ Pufferfish’s comment about Zantac.
So sorry to hear this. Our son is almost 17, and my wife still talks about how he had his days and nights backwards for months at the beginning! Now we can’t get him out of bed before noon on the weekends! It will pass, but in the meantime, we are all here for you to vent to. Best of luck to you.
So sorry it has been so hard. 11 weeks is still very little–she is WAY too young for any sort of sleep training or sleeping through the night or CIO, regardless of one’s philosophies about them. Everything we read said you absolutely can’t let an infant cry it out before 4 months old. And if she cries all night long, that makes for some tough nights for the moms.
I dreaded going back to work as well and it is Hard. But, just something to consider, there is something to be said for sitting at one’s desk and enjoying peace and quiet. Having two hands to use on your computer and to eat lunch without a crying baby. So try and envision (at least on the days Goldie isn’t at work with you) how nice that will be.
xo
sending you a big hug. these weeks are *HARD*, but it will get better, i promise. all of our girls started sleeping longer stretches around 12-14 weeks (~4 hours at a time) and it continued to improve from there.
i have two thoughts on the sleeping issues:
1. has fern mastered side-lying nighttime nursing yet? if so, maybe she could nurse her to sleep, then slip out of the bed (and avoid the arms-to-bed disruption) and have a few hours of baby-free time before ya’ll go to bed. then, when goldie fusses at night, fern can nurse her lying next to her, then go back to sleep without having to pick her up and hold her. perhaps that would ease the transition into having her in bed with you, but not in your arms.
if not nursing, maybe just try lying next to her in the dark room until she’s asleep? you can be right there to pat/comfort/sing to her until she’s asleep, and then again, slip out once she’s down. that way she’d get used to being in bed vs. in your arms. my pediatrician explained that it’s jolting for babies to fall asleep in one place and wake in another (just like if you fell asleep in your bed and woke up in the kitchen, you’d be scared/alarmed). if she can get used to lying on the bed, with the comfort of you right there, that might help with the night wakings.
2. if she’s accepting of the bouncy seat, use it! with the twins, we’d do a final nighttime feed, then turn off the lights and put them in their bouncy seats. i’d sit right there with them, all swaddled up, and bounce them until they were asleep. bouncy seats are great because when they stir at night (but aren’t really ready for a feeding), the seat lulls them back to sleep.
alright, i’ll stop now
don’t know if any of that will help, our girls have all had unique sleep issues so i’ve really learned that each baby is different. do what you have to do in the moment to survive and remember *it gets better!*
I was going to suggest the same about side-lying nursing. It might give her a positive association with lying next to one of you on the bed so that she doesn’t have that need to be held. This is one of the only ways we got BG to sleep on a surface other than a parent (yes, he was one of those too). When we were able to put him down when he was really little, we used a moses basket. Because the walls were fairly close to him, he seemed more comforted than when he was in the wide expanse of his cosleeper.
I don’t remember if you mentioned whether you have tried gripe water or not, but for some babies, it works for all kinds of ailments. Another thing we sometimes found helpful was for me to drink lots of chamomile tea before nursing. It seemed to calm BG during those witching hours in the evening.
I’m sorry your birthday was so rough. When it seems your child just doesn’t care that it’s *your* special day, it can be quite frustrating, and I think whining is totally called for. I hope you find some relief soon. Just go easy on yourself. It’s okay to complain. It’s okay to have bad days as a mom. The good news is, it’s going to get better. xo
Not to just repeat what others have said, but Izzy was really hard in the beginning too and we found that when we actually talked to our friends with newborns (as in less than 6 months) EVERYONE said some variation of the same thing.
As for wanting to be held, Izzy went through the same thing and then we discovered the nap nanny — I dont want to sound like an ad for an overpriced piece of foam but it CHANGED.OUR.LIFE. She would sleep for HOURS in it. For her it was mild reflux and just wanting to be upright/cuddled. She hated her carseat (at that point) but something about the nap-nanny worked. See if you know anyone local who has it and try it out — it just might be your magic bullet. AND not to repeat all of the reflux advice, but it was the case for Izzy too. She didnt really have any of the classic symptoms (and in the end didnt even really have reflux) but pretty intense food allergies that manifested as horrible horrible gas. Maybe have Fern try to avoid dairy, soy and gluten for a few days (dairy takes 10 days to get out of your system). It didnt completely solve it for us, but its got DRAMATICALLY better. Just a thought before bringing in the meds….
omg, the bitterness that is talking about sleep when your baby isn’t…. boy, is it bitter. it’s a miracle i have teeth left, i’ve gnashed them so much.
i’m sorry you are going through this. the bean is still no one’s idea of a great sleeper, but things have, in fact, gotten better. i won’t go into details, because at the point when i wasn’t sleeping even as much as i am now, reading other people’s stories just made me wail.
if that’s not how you react, you might like reading ask moxie on the subject. apparently a lot of people do, because they were always telling me to, and then i would, and then there would be more gnashing and wailing.
oh, and while my birthday was okay, this christmas was globally the best and selfishly pretty blah. so i get you there.
Oh Olive,
I know everyone has said it, too, but I want to add to the chorus of voices: It is totally normal. Maybe that feels like bad news right now, because maybe you feel like Goldie SHOULD be sleeping through the night, but I think it is a rare baby indeed that does… The Boy STILL doesn’t (but don’t despair, I am MUCH better rested than I was a year ago.) I HATE that all those stupid sleep books make you think that you are defective as a parent or your babies is a “bad sleeper” because your baby is doing what babies do: crying and eating and sleeping on her very own schedule. I know what you are going through and I know there is nothing I can say that will make it all better, but do this: take your friends and family up on babysitting for a few hours, even if only so you can go sleep once a week, for a solid chunk of time. It won’t work magic, but it will help. Big hugs to you Fern & Goldie.
I have no baby parenting experience but just wanted to add in here a hug and a word of support. It’s totally normal to have hard parenting days and want to talk about them to others who will understand. Hang in there… I have a six year old and a three year old and from what I’m told, they were both terrors as babies… but they sleep through the night now! You know the crying all night long thing won’t last forever. Hang in there.
Thank you all so much for your commiseration and ideas. I do not tire of hearing the phrase, it gets better.
AOOL – Fern does side lying but has never tried putting Goldie down that way. We’re totally going to try this! So far no luck with the bouncy seat at night, but we keep putting her in there during the day to hopefully build up to night use.
Schro – We don’t actually think she should be sleeping through the night either. I was expressing shock at the people who keep implying that she should or even could be at this point. I often think of our car ride with you back to your hotel and you describing the first three months. You got through it and so can we!
e10 – After reading your comment Fern was ready to run out and buy the nap nanny. She kept saying, I WANT IT. We still might buy it, but perhaps not tonight.
Pajama – that’s a great link – thank you!
tbean – I am kind of in love with thinking about work that way. Now if I could only build in a work nap…
wow. i have a lot to say here. sorry to hijack, should’ve read everything first. i just want to echo that side-lying is also what worked for us. so now, for example, i am lying next to bunny blogging while he sleeps with an arm on my chest. connected, yes, but worlds more free.
Oh, and RG – we have tried gripe water to limited success. Fern has also taken some chamomilla (and we’ve given some to Goldie) but she just brewed herself a nice cup after reading your comment (which is now going cold because Goldie was hungry, but still!).
first of all, happy birthday.
it gets better, i swear. as you know, we haven’t solved the sleep thing, but i’ll share some of our experience. i’m hoping some of this helps.
- she will learn to take a bottle. it took bunny almost a week to get past barely drinking enough to stave off hunger, but he did get there. longer periods of time away from fern are better for this. if fern is gone for a few hours, the baby has the option of remaining fussy and holding out. if fern is gone all day, goldie will adapt. our midwife gave us that advice and we were dubious, but it turned out to be true. bunny is a reverse cycler who still nurses every few hours all night, but he’s gotten better about the bottle. he actually took a bottle and fell asleep on M this weekend even though i was home and on the other side of the room. of course it has to be warm, like it is out of the breast. lukewarm never cut it for him.
- nights are worse than days. bunny is happy at home with mommy all day, but freaks out when i’m not next to him at night. taking her to work should be a lot easier than choir practice was.
- the colic will go away soon. goldie will probably always be high needs, but she will outgrow some of her problems. bunny still has painful gas, for example, but no longer shows signs of reflux. he still needs us in physical contact with him when he sleeps, but no longer needs to be rocked to sleep if he doesn’t fall asleep nursing. if he’s tired enough, just cuddling will often be enough. the improvements come slowly, but they are real. of course, goldie’s may be different from bunny’s, but each little piece will help.
XO
this too shall pass…
Oh man, that sounds tough. I no longer feel the need to blog about our very own sleep/gas issues – they suddenly feel rather trivial.
It will get better. Just so you can read it again. I have three other things to say: firstly, the “does she sleep through” obsession is just ridiculous and I’m sure is simply an opener to proffering unwanted advice. It’s bullshit. Secondly, read this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16492490 and take consolation in the fact that it’s even more normal for breastfed babies to be “fussy”, even without gas/reflux. Thirdly, have you considered Craniosacral Therapy? We had some joy with this early on, and are planning to return baby for more help very soon. Big hugs to you both in those dark hours.
Well, you already much good advice! But like many – oh.my.god, we also went through this. We co-slept and he cried and cried even so. I held him for the entire duration of his naps until he was five-ish months old. He fussed in the evenings (“arsenic hour,” according to my mom) and he cried horribly when (the rare times) Uno left for the evening, and I hated that I felt so frustrated and sad during those times. So, big hug, lots of support, and I’ll shout it from the rooftops: it gets better! I repeat. It gets better.
For us – we never tried the reflux meds, as he seemed to suffer more from the I-have-gas-and-a-fussy-temperment malady than reflux per se. It helped me a lot to hear from our midwife that many babies are just … kinda fussy. They’re developing and changing in rapid ways that affect their sense of well-being in ways that are difficult for us to understand. The second best thing was side-lying nursing. Uno nursed him down like that and they fell asleep that way. He stayed latched on, well, pretty much all night. She’d flip him over her body occasionally to switch sides. I burped and changed dipes as needed. It was a great solution for us. Now, as he got bigger and heartier, she started working on detaching him from the boob more, but we didn’t worry about that early on. Sleep is sleep, right? Third thing (helped with the being-held-to-sleep problem): I did a lot of Elizabeth Pantley’s techniques from the No Cry Solution books. Yes, she wants a lot of homework-style record-keeping, which we eschewed, but you might like. But I loved her gentle approach and it worked for us. Slowly. Over time. I did the “dancing down” which helped – swaying and rocking him slowly onto the bassinet mattress. “Cycle-blending” also helped. Oh, and white noise! He loved the “rainstorm” sounds, which we still play during his nap. When things got bad, turning on the shower always quieted him, too. I’d sit on the bathroom floor in the steamy air and sing. Well, anyway, I clearly need to write my own post about this. Just wanted to offer up that these things did work for us in the end, and that now, at 16 months, he is a lovely sleeper, hearty nurser, and takes the bottle fine.
Also – have you ever tried using a dropper with milk when she rejects the bottle? That helped our little guy get used to the idea, and once he got the taste of milk in him he’d go for the bottle much better.
Best of luck! Hang in there!
And a very happy birthday to a wonderful mama.
Happy Happy Birthday!!!
So much great advice given! Aren’t you glad to see that you’re not the only one. Goldie is beautiful and anyone wanting to know if she’s sleeping through the night must not remember what it’s like to have a newborn. Emma was on a 3 hour eat schedule until she was almost 9 months. It’s just what worked for her and us. You can only do what works for Goldie and her mommas.
Have you tried the anti-gas drops? Emma needed them on a daily basis. There were days when at 2am you’d find me at the local walmart because we had ran out and needed them RIGHT NOW! After paying a fortune for the “brand” name mylecon drops our dr set us straight on using the $4 store brand with the same outcome.
Emma hated every bottle that we tried. We went through 1 of everything that Babies R Us had until we got to the Tomee Tippee and that was the only bottle she would take, it’s supposed to be super similar to a breast.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, you are a new mommy and it’s damn hard work. Just remember, it does get better.
You know the maybe “if you just relax you get pregnant?” It is the same thing as “if you are really chill then your baby will be too.” You are awesome and some babies cry more than others. Hang in there! It will get better.
Have you seen this site? http://www.purplecrying.info/ They have lots of ideas and words of reassurance. Would earplugs help take the edge off while you soothe her?
3 to 3.5 months made all the difference for us. hope things improve. there is never any doubt how much you love goldie! hope things start looking up soon. and happy belated birthday!
I just remembered a potential helper that people swear by in my crunchy moms’ group: cranial sacral therapy. I’m sure you can find a good therapist in your area. The ladies I know whose babies have undergone these treatments swear by it for virtually any infant issue–even colic–and I believe them. On a similar note others have had a lot of success with really good pediatric chiropractors, especially when reflux is suspected. Hope you’ll all be resting well soon.
A happy belated birthday to you and sorry I missed this since we were gone last week. Even though we were blessed with a miracle sleeper, I still vividly recall those first few weeks when he wasn’t sleeping well, and how he cried all through the night. I thought we were going to go insane lol. It was horrible. And even though he may have been in pain (and since zantac did work for us, I’m sure he was), it was still so hard not to take it as some kind of personal attack when he banshee-screamed at us at 4am. But eventually his body matured and the medicine helped and we all did what we had to do to get him to sleep better…and we survived. I know you will, too, but your whining is perfectly legit no matter what you had to go through to get here. I hope you’re both able to find some sort of solution soon. Really, keep trying whatever you can including meds. Time will help, too.
did i really never comment on this? i thought i had.
i am not exactly the angel of glad tidings about sleep, but i will say that at about 3 months it became possible to do side-lying nursing with the bean, which made a huge difference. that was also the age when he emphatically rejected the swaddle, and he slept better without it. i add that bit just as encouragement to feel free to change a routine and see if it helps; these little critters do change as they get older.
the bean refused to sleep except on me for 2.5 months, and i thought i was going to die — or kill the next person to say “sleep when the baby sleeps!” (what kind of moronic advice is that, i ask you?) i do not mean to say you need to do this, but for the record, the two things that changed that were: putting him down by the clock (90 minutes after waking) instead of waiting for him to look tired, by which point he was overtired. and — don’t tell the internet — letting him cry. it was murder, that, but it turns out he is the kind of baby who releases energy that way, and everything i did to keep him from crying was just keeping him from relaxing enough to sleep. i hated it. i had to sit on my hands and weep in the other room. but soon he started crying for less and less time, and i started to feel a bit better.
Hi, this sounds like food allergy/intolerance. When through that with both my kids. Dairy and wheat are the first offenders at that age.
I breastfeed so taking it out of my diet was the first step. It made such a huge chance it was unbelievable!
Hi there,
Sorry to hear you’re doing it so hard right now… it definitely does improve.
I’m not trying to drag you to something you are uncomfortable with but we believe that ‘Sleep training’ as it was called here in Oz at the time, probably saved our marriage and our daughter’s life… without being all melodramatic, we couldn’t cope with holding her all night and her still screaming one.more.day. It was horrible for the for the first night and we felt like the worst parents in the world, but oh-so-quickly we turned the corner and it changed her life and ours. Maybe don’t dismiss it completely. (She was 11 weeks old and is now 18 and well adjusted;-)
Good luck getting through this hard time, know that we understand how hard it is and would wave a magic wand if we could.
Bridg
I know I am REALLY late responding to this post but I wanted to comment. I had to giggle a little at the part where you were begging Goldie for some relief, not because it was funny, it certianly wasn’t, but just because reading it brought me right back to that time in my own life – walking in circles around my house with a red faced screaming baby who would not stop or who would stop only to start up again the moment you put her down. Even better was when I would get her to lay in her vibrating bouncer quietly, even sleeping a little, and then I would try to sleep. I am not joking when I say that she knew the moment I put my head on the pillow to try to sleep and she would start screaming again. Literally. Then she would wake up her brother and it would start all over again. It was the worst kind of tourture – the sleeplessness, the crying (hers, mine, Cat’s, her brother’s), the worry that there is something wrong, the feeling of failure that you cant do this right, the pacing with a crying baby in the middle of the night in a body that nearly refused to be pushed any further. These early days, while raw and beautiful and magical are also some of the hardest you will ever endure.
It was right around 2.5 or 3 months that we started “sleep training”. We didn’t use books or CIO techniques, we just started a routine and altered it to meet our needs as we went. We started by having very specific rituals for bedtime and they happened at the same time every night. We would do a diaper change, get into PJ’s, swaddle (with a velcro sack when the were big enough. I swear by these) and then have a song and put them down. While they were really small slept in boppys. Bug slept in a boppy in bed with me and Button slept in a boppy in another room with Cat. They each had binckies and we used them to help them sleep. We would put them in their boppy, put in a binkie, sing a song, say goodnight and close the door and leave (We had a nightlight on in the room). We would wait to see if there was crying, go back in, reinsert the lost binkie, soothe, leave, repeat. Some nights they went down and some nights we had to get them up and settle them before trying again. It took a while but eventually they started sleeping on their own and going down when when it was bedtime with little or no problem. We slept with them at night so that if they woke and it wasn’t feeding time we would just pop the binkie back in their mouths and that would often soothe them back to sleep.
I dont know if any of that info will help you but maybe me telling you that things WILL change for the better very soon might? I’ll be thinking of you all and wishing for that magical switch to happen soon. It does happen to you know, where one day they cry all the time and then a few days later the switch flips and they start smiling and acting like little people all the time. Then they become toddlers and its right back to screaming again!
PS – Both my kiddos now sleep from about 7:30 or 8:00 untill about 7:30 or 8:00. It does get better! They do occassionally wake up in the night and cry for a minute but only when they are sick are they unable to get themselves back to sleep. That’s usually the first sign that someone is coming down with something. Be consistant in your methods and do what you know is right for the situation and she will be sleeping tear free before you know it.
xo