New Experience - Vacation without Sleep
I'm a first-time father with an 8 month old girl, and recently got to spend the holidays on a vacation with my whole family at a rented home in the mountains. It was a great time for my whole family to spend time together, ski, play in the snow and of course, spoil my baby Amanda. Unfortunately, it was also our first time taking a vacation and getting to experience sleeping in the same room with Amanda for an extended period of time. Talk about lack of sleep!
We were prepared for the week. We read the books on how to get Amanda to sleep and stay sleep throughout the night. We brought all the blankets and toys we have for her at home to make her nighttime as routine as possible, but the pack-n-play we put her in just didn't work. She was constantly waking up throughout the night, crying and waking up the whole family. We even had a sound machine in the room that we picked up at last year's BabyTime Expo, which helped her fall asleep. The sounds of either a heartbeat or continuous playing of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, however, are not conducive for either my wife or me to sleep to.
When Dr. Karp presented his Happiest Baby on the Block at last year's BabyTime Expo, we learned precisely how to get our baby to stop crying. His swaddling and shushing advice works! We no longer swaddle, but the way we hold her and talk to her got her to stop crying very quickly. However, how were we to keep her sleeping throughout the night? Whatever we did, it didn't work. My wife was an angel, however, and let me sleep in my nephews' room (they are ages 7 and 10) for a couple of nights so I could get some sleep (of course, I then got to hear them talk about sports and listen to them play their DS games under their covers).
When we got home, my wife and I were thrilled to have our room back and put Amanda back in her own room and in her crib. However, Amanda was so far removed from her routine after the vacation that we basically had to start all over with getting her to sleep through the night. We are back to only 1 night-waking a night, which is a big accomplishment.
However, my wife and I are now trying to figure out how we are going to take our next vacation and take Amanda's entire nursery with us!
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