I'm worn out.
As much as my heart aches for the amount of love I have for my little girl, she can really drain every ounce of my being. From her photos you would probably think she's the happiest baby. I don't want to spill her beans- but she is quite the 'needy' baby. By this I mean she constantly constantly needs SOMETHING or she's whining. I'm not talking about a normal baby needing to eat, sleep, or diaper change. She's rarely content for more than 10 minutes at a time- all day long. Some days are better than others. The problem may lie in the fact that she takes horrible naps. 30 minutes are the norm and that's only 2 maaybbbe 3 times a day. So my little 6 month old averages 1 1/2-2 hours of sleep during a 12 hour period. It's not enough. But I've tried everything. Swing, crib, vibrating chair, play-yard, using sound machines, putting her in a dark area. Nothing will keep her asleep for long.
Then there's the nighttime. Lately it has been so.bad. I get up 4-5 times a night to tend to her, usually feeding her 3 times. It's absurd. After her six month check up when the Doctor told me she doesn't need to eat during the night it's just a habit I tried sleep training. The first night I gave her 1 ounce and tried to put her back to bed. 40 minutes later she finally fell asleep--- for 5 minutes---then woke back up saying 'na na na', which means she's hungry. How the heck do I refuse my baby food when she's clearly hungry enough to keep waking up. The next few nights I tried 2 ounces when she first woke up which was fine, except it only made her wake up sooner again. I finally gave up and started feeding her a full bottle so I'd at least get 2-3 hours of consecutive sleep at a time. She wakes up for everything though- a full diaper or needing a burp makes her wake up. Therefore I'm in and out of bed all night long. It's exhausting.
I'm not writing this post to complain- although it feels good to get it out. I would love to her any inputs or similar situations you may have/had. Maybe your advice will work for us, maybe I just need to suck it up. This mommy needs some sleep!
She's lucky she's so darn cute! ;)