6 months old, Halloween and sleepless nights! Oh my!

I sit by myself!

Swinging at our park! Weeeeeee!

Suvi was 6 months old on Oct 20. She is getting to be a very big girl...19.38 pounds, 27 inches tall which put her in 95% and 90 percentile. She is sitting up, really trying hard to crawl (she gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, pulls herself forward like she is crawling under barbed wire) and LOVES to bounce. She swings at the park and with help goes down the slide. She is eating 3 real meals a day now. She eats her rice cereal, bananas, peaches, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, green beans, apples. Markku has fed her real apples and veggie hot dogs as well-they didn't go far before I caught them and swiped her mouth clean! She is a happy content baby for the most part. Except at night....see below on sleepless nights.

Happy Halloween (see lollipop we used to bribe him?)

For Halloween, Markku was a bee and Suvi a ballerina. It took 3 parties (refused to get into costume) and bribing with lollipops to get Markku into the bee costume but he finally did it in time for trick or treating! Suvi is pretty easy to just put in her costume. She loved eating her tutu as well. Just to show how big she is, her tutu was sized at 18 months! Heikki was out of town for Halloween so mummo Frederick came up to celebrate!

Bouncing around to swan lake!

We put Suvi's tutu on Markku! He wouldn't wear the bee costume and in his leggings and shirt he looked like a male ballet dancer. He was actually kicking and screaming to get it off!

Sleepless nights are currently what is happening in our neck of the woods. As I type, Suvi is screaming her head off and resisting falling asleep. As soon as she dozes off, she jerks awake and starts screaming all over again. We started sleep training Ferber style about 12 days ago or so. The first few nights weren't too bad and I thought we were home free. But then Suvi started waking up more and more and not falling back to sleep on her own. Here was my night last Saturday:

8 pm : Suvi to bed. Fell asleep within 5 minutes of putting her to bed. Not bad...
9:15 pm: wake up, starts crying. Don't go in for 10 minutes as per Ferber...and have to get Markku out of tub, dried off, lotion on, teeth brushed, in PJs, read 2 books, and him to bed, all the while saying "hurry up, I have to go to baby! Shhh! Don't let baby know we are right here!"
9:35 pm: Suvi hysterical. Pat her on the back. She is shrieking and kicking her arms and legs.
9:37 pm: leave room almost in tears myself
9:55 pm: Suvi still shrieking. Go back in, rub her back, leave
10:05pm: still crying, getting quieter. Go in her room...starts shrieking again. Damn! leave room.
10:20pm: I think she is sleeping.
10:50 pm I am in bed.
11:50 pm: Suvi starts crying again. Leave her for 15 minutes this time...She is shrieking.
I go in and out of room every 20 minutes for 1 hour. Finally asleep again (it is 1 am).
2:00 am: awake and shrieking again. I am crying as well. Don't go in as it only seems to make her mad and I am delirious and tired.
3:15 am: I am awake and she is still crying-or if she stopped she is now awake and crying again. I am not sure as I am really tired. I go and nurse her as it is passed the 7 hours my doctor said to wait between night feedings.
3:40 am: She falls asleep in my arms but I am to wake her up so she sleeps better (are you *??!*!* kidding me????).
4:30 am: still crying.
5:00 am: still crying and I am up reading my Ferber book. It says if not working within 7 days (it is day 6 for us) then need to stop and reassess what sleeping problem is. (Yeah, no shit!). Read chapter on dependence on nursing to fall asleep. Ferber says that although a 6 month old does not need to eat at night, if they are accustomed to it it is cruel to stop cold turkey and should wean off. So first of all, Ferber who is known for being hard (many people think his methods are cruel) and letting babies cry it out, is saying that what I am doing is cruel! (I was listening to my pediatrician) Second of all, why didn't I read ALL the chapters before starting sleep training????
6 am: up for day....if you can call what we are doing as being awake!
So then I tried to gradually increase the time between night feedings. But she is still waking up every 2 hours. Now I am not to feed her and she gets hysterical and takes 1-2 hours to cry herself to sleep. But if I nurse her, then I am continuing her dependence right? Well, everyone needs sleep once in awhile. So I nurse her...Even if I nurse her now she wakes every 2 hours. Even if I let her sleep with me she wakes every 2 hours. Or worse, she wakes every hour. I hate night time right now. I think Suvi does too.

It is 9:45 pm and Suvi has cried herself to sleep (I have gone in once) after 1 hour. She went to bed at 8 pm and has already woken up once and cried for an hour! See how fun our nights are? Poor Markku. He sleeps in the room next to her. Heikki is miraculously gone 6 nights this week--how did he arrange that schedule??