A New Week, A New Idea

So.....last night Joe and I laid in bed (watching the Olympics of course!) and we started to discuss how Riley's sleeping is getting me so upset. Not only am I upset that she is going backwards in her sleep habits, but I am up all hours trying to get her back to sleep. Therefore, I have become really tired and short-tempered. (I attribute my short-temper to lack of sleep and the fact that thought of leaving Riley everyday makes me burst into tears!!) So....we discussed the routine she was on before when things were wonderful.....and it was really only an eating routine. Meaning that she only had a routine for when she ate. So I am going to go back to that type of routine this week. I am only going to worry about the 4 hour eating schedule. I am going to have her eating every 4 hours and then playing and then napping. But I am not going to worry about how long she plays or naps for. If she wants to play for 2 hours and sleep for 30 minutes, that will be fine with me. These are the only things I will be concerned with this week:
* that she eats only every 4 hours
* That she plays after she eats
* That her bedtime routine does not change at all
* that she takes 2 1-hour naps a day....if she wants longer, great!!

I want to make sure that she plays after she eats because if she eats then goes right to bed she will associate a bottle with sleeping and eventually not sleep without the bottle. The only time we give her the bottle before sleep is at bedtime, and that is part of the routine.

We are going to be getting up every morning at 7:30 (per Joe's request) so that she and he can both get on a schedule for daycare drop-off. Which means that all her feedings will be at the same time everyday: 7:30, 11:30, 3:30, 7:30.

I am also taking the advice of my friend Hayan and a)switching to oatmeal instead of rice cereal and b) feeding her the solids in the evening a bit earlier....to avoid night time gas. Hopefully this will help too.

Oh yeah.....I have a small feeling she is teething, so we got some Orajel swabs yesterday. Riley woke up this morning SCREAMING and holding her mouth, so I busted them out, swabbed her gums and within 10 minutes she was much better and fell back to sleep.

Ok, enough rambling!! Hope everyone had a great weekend!!