The thing that bugs me the most right now is that my daughter Sadie only goes to sleep with a blanket touching her face and only stays asleep if the blanket is by her.
So due to the fear (paranoia really) of SIDS, let's just say Wes gets little sleep and I get even less.
Unless she is sleeping in our bed, which let's be honest, doesn't help the SIDS thing, she doesn't sleep. Having her sleep in our bed in fact probably increases the risk since we have a pillow top bed and we sleep with a very fluffy comforter.
The only other time she sleeps is in her swing and because she is sitting upright, I justify that she can sleep with a blanket, which is why she actually sleeps in the swing.
But I am stubborn and refuse to let her sleep in the stupid (don't tell my kids I said that) swing all night long. I know soon enough she will be too big for it and then where will we be.
I just read the other day that babies can't sleep with a blanket until they are 12 months! What! We can't survive on such little sleep for that long.
So the solution...it's simple really. All we have to do is get tough and let her cry it out in her bed.
But I'm not sure when that will happen because her cry is a scream and it sounds like she is being tortured, slowly and painfully.
And I don't really want our neighbors (thanks to apartment living) to think we are being bad parents.
Plus we might be able to handle listening to her cry for 20 minutes at the beginning of the night but after that we are too tired to stay up, nerves strained to wait through another crying fit. Did I mention she sleeps in our room? (Thanks again to apartment living).
So that's it. That's what bugs me, mainly I'm super bugged that the one thing that actually lets her sleep she can't have for another, 7 months.
I know later down the road I'm going to read this and laugh that this is my biggest complaint but for now it is what it is.
I have never heard that babies aren't supposed to sleep with blankets until they are 12 months... it makes sense I guess. Benton has slept with a blanket since day one. We have swaddled him every night since birth. When he was younger and not able to move we also put a blanket on top of him.
ReplyDeleteWhen he started rolling over we just used the blanket that we swaddled him in. I have never had a problem with it. It has never been up by his face.
I would also be more concerned about a baby sleeping in our bed, because of all the things you mentioned- pillow top, comforter, and us.
We did the cry it out method, and Benton also had the LOUD and LOUDER scream. It took him almost 2 weeks (normally it takes 3-5 days) to get the hang of it but now when he sleeps a lot longer and when he wakes up he cries for only a few minutes before falling back to sleep.
So I guess what I am saying it that if it were me I would let her sleep with the blanket, and maybe watch how she sleeps with it to see if it ever gets close to her face. You could also make a mini (like 1 square foot) blanket so she has something to hold on to but isn't so bulky. I don't know if any of this helps, but I hope you are able to find something that will help you all sleep soon. Good luck