Sleep Files

Ah, sleep. The most talked about aspect of a baby's life, it seems. I will say that I think that there are a million ways to do the sleep thing, and I don't really think any of them are wrong. Most people think that their way is "the" way and it may be.. for them. But I don't think that there's a way to make massive mistakes here. We can learn from things that don't work, but I don't think that it does any harm. And any habit can be changed. It might not be easy, but it's not something I'm worrying about right now. Wow that sounded defensive. Not intended to be. But I guess it is an opinion regarding the ever-present judgements out there regarding sleep. I know so many people that get upset about what others think of their sleep problems, or that they're doing something wrong. I'm no expert, but I say "meh. The kid will get it when they get it."

I think Ian is getting ready for a change in the sleep department. Not sure why, just a feeling. So we're following his lead and helping with that. He currently nurses down for most of his sleep sessions, but he seems to not want to do that every time right now. There's a theory out there that the method by which they fall asleep dictates how they'll go back to sleep after light wakings in the night. If they did it the first time by themselves, then they will the subsequent times by themselves. But Ian nurses down and then puts himself back to sleep after waking up to cough or sneeze or whatever. He regularly wakes a bit then goes back to sleep. He often opens his eyes when I put him in the crib after he nurses down. So I don't quite buy that theory. But we're helping him make sure he's got other options to get himself to sleep.

Regarding night sleep in particular, I think that our night-time noises may disturb him some. There's also my body rhythm that wakes up every few hours to nurse and if he didn't have my rustling right on time, maybe he would sleep a bit longer.

To that end, we are trying sleeping in a separate room from him. It'll mean I have to be somewhat more awake when I go in to nurse him (i.e. I have to walk farther), but we're trying it out for a bit to see how it goes. Also, no monitor, but he's across the hall. That will reduce the chances of us over-responding to every whimper. He does get a response when needed, but he also will make noise at night and not need a response. At this point, I'm ok with not hearing those. At first, I definitely did want to hear it, being a paranoid mom. Rather than disassemble the crib, for right now, we're sleeping in the guest room. Last night was not bad after a rocky start. He was down at 10, up at midnight, and then upset when put down in the crib from 1-2. We think he may still have a sore throat. Then he slept from 2-5:30 then till 9am and up for the day at that point).

Today, he had a great nap, too, and went to sleep on his own after playing quietly in his crib. Often, when he's clearly tired, but awake and not interested in nursing down, rather than have him goof off with me, I put him in the crib. We've done this at night and for naps, but more often for naps. Most of the time, he'll get to a certain point, start fussing and then crying and I go talk to him and usually nurse him down. But today, he goofed off a bit, then just went to sleep. I went up a bit later to check, and he had his head at the opposite end of the crib and was on his tum with his butt in the air. And out like a light. He slept for 2 hours and woke up and resumed play. I think one difference with this nap was that I took him to start the nap a bit earlier than I might have otherwise. He wasn't quite as over tired, and I think that helped.

Sorry for the long, boring post, but we need to chronicle what's working around here. We'll check in periodically in the sleep department to get a snapshot of the current situation to see our progress.

Ian says: Get to work!