Ah yes, Square One. How familiar you are with your four 90 degree angles and your squareness. So after the sucess of last Friday night (Doug spent the night at my parent's) we got greedy. We started a "Take Back the Bedroom" initiative. Those of you with older children are probably already laughing. We decided that Doug's swing, bottles, fish mobile and most importantly bed, were going in his room. Well, there must have been some residual 'Grandma Dust' on him, because he slept quite well that night and so did we.
However during the rest of the week things started going down hill again. I'd be up and back between his room several times before he was able to fall asleep and stay asleep. Then, not long after he'd fallen asleep, he'd wake up for his next bottle, at which point I wanted to bang my head into the wall repeatedly. Yesterday, after not having slept a whole lot in a few days, I had my Mom come over and sit with him while I took a nap. A very generous and lovely nap. She noticed that he really does have trouble soothing himslef to sleep and until he's deeply asleep, he frequently wakes himself up.
Last night we decided to give up the ghost and Doug moved back in with us. It's ok, I miseed sleeping with the fish. At one point he wanted to eat an hour earlier than he should have. Instead of feeding him, Jeff suggested I just take him into bed with me. I'm not a huge fan of this for safety reasons, but as long as I keep the comforter off me and the sheet down, I think it's ok. The arm I use to cradle him with also gets terribly sore. But Doug slept for two hours, going five hours between feedings. The rest of the night I'd put him in his bassinet again after a feeding only to have him fuss forever. Each time I took him back in bed with me and he slept quite well. So did I.
So Doug and I struck up a deal. He can sleep in his bassinet next to me or in bed as needed for a few more weeks as long as he takes at least one nap during the day in his crib. I want him to get used to soothing himself back to sleep and sleeping alone. I can deal with getting up and helping him back to sleep more during the day when I'm not sleep depreived. I put him in his crib at the beginning of 'Ellen' and fifty minutes later he's still not asleep. He keeps making small fussy noises and losing his pacifier. He keeps nearly getting to sleep. I'm hopeful that he'll be out in the next ten minutes. We shall see.
Actually your wanting what I did-- him to grow up so you can sleep. Unfortunately he does not have the neurological capacity to "sooth" himself to sleep until 4-6 months (more closer to 6). Nora is just now starting to be able to at 5 months. Basically around three months his night sleep should get better. According to my pediatrician and many sleep books (I became obsessed with sleep) at his age the longest period he can go without eating in a 24 hour period is 4 hours. Then around 3-4 months it's 6 hours. So my pediatrician told me to make sure I'm waking her up every 2-3 hours during the day so she gave me my 4 hours of straight sleep at night. It may b a little different for bottle fed babies though. Then by 5 months it's 8 hours then at 6 months they are supposed to be able to sleep 12 hours without being fed. Between 11-16 weeks Nora gave me 10-11 hours straight. Then at 16 weeks. She started waking up once during the night for one feeding mostly because my milk wasn't lasting as long for her. Now she goes to bed around 7-8 sleeps around 8-9 hours wakes up to eat then back to sleep til 7-8. At six months (hopefully by then she'll be more into solids) I'm planning on cutting out the middle of the night feeding. Also if she woke up too soon in the night before 6-8 hours we just give her the pacifier and she goes back to sleep. Dont worry it'll happen when you least expect it and faster than you think. Just get through the next month.
ReplyDeleteAw my poor babies! Both the actual babies and my friends! I can't wait to have my own misery and you two can laugh at me and say "SUCK IT UP - you will miss this time when he/she's 3, 4, 5" or whatever :)
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