Good Sleep!

It was a record night for sleep for one young boy. After going to sleep shortly before 10pm and waking around 11pm, he slept until just before 7! Then he proceeded to sleep two more hours. He should be well rested today.

So this is where we dissect why this might have happened.

• Food? It was a normal food day, he didn’t eat much. I think most of our relatively good nights have come after good food days.
• Naps? He slept from 3:30-5:30 or so, and he didn’t sleep as much as he’d like. We had to wake him up to go somewhere. I thought he’d stay asleep but he didn't, of course. But this week he hasn't been napping very much. Sometimes less than 2 hours per day. We have been working on an earlier bedtime, but that didn't happen yesterday.
• Activity? This is I think the biggest thing for him for yesterday. We went to the garden for a cleanup party, and there were a bunch of kids there. He just went right over and got right in the fray and chased them and played for the majority of our 2 hours there. This was shortly before bed, too. The kids were mostly older - a 2 yo boy, 6 yo girl, 9 yo boy, 12 yo boy. They loved entertaining him and watching out for him while the adults talked and worked the garden. The older boys even raked a pile of leaves for everyone to play in as well. It was great fun.
• Teeth? He has been teething a lot lately and that may have made him a tad more tired than normal. We gave him oragel around 5 or so, but nothing else during the day or night.

It's 9am, and a happy boy is waking up for the day. 

What a difference a day makes

"What?! A day? You haven't posted in over a month!"

I hear you. I'll get caught up here over the next few weeks.

But for now, we'll talk about this week.

For at least a month, Ian has been teething molars. His lower right is breaking through in spectacular fashion. It's huge!

Monday night, it was just too much for a little boy to take. He'd had some oragel for the tooth pain during the day, so he's now receptive to the q-tip with gunk on it (until he remembers that I'll be touching his sore gums, then he recoils). Bedtime routine is happy and fine. Then he goes to nurse down. Almost asleep, screaming. Try again. Almost asleep, then more screaming. As he's laying in the guest bed next to me, screaming, he's signing "help" and "hurt" over and over. It was just heartbreaking! Poor guy was in pain and he wanted Mama to fix it. Daddy is a mind reader (or a scream reader, rather) and brought in the oragel. We topped that off with tylenol and a fresh diaper. He finally dozed off close to 11pm and slept soundly until after 4.

Tuesday night, teething tabs before bed and he went down relatively easily and slept (albeit fitfully) until about 4. The gums today look angry, red, and there's a monstrous tooth coming through. I hope this is over with quickly.

I haven't taken many photos lately, but here's a bedtime pic for you, coming to you straight from the loo!!

This Moment - Bedtime Giggles

No photo for you, so I'll have to paint you a mental image.

The night-time routine. Ian is clad in jammies and doing laps around his room. John is reading a story from the rocking chair. I am laying on the rug on the floor, relaxing, listening to the story, and obliging when Ian comes over to ask to nurse. Which is about once every three minutes, and lasts 45 seconds each. Give or take. I've got a cold, so am trying not to get Ian sick as well. Somehow he gets the idea, and I'm not sure how it started, but he's now coming over and trying really hard to plant his neck on my face. Because then I make some noise and he's tickled and giggles. He does that until he can't stand it, then goes away and comes back for more. Such a very very silly boy. And all of this is enough to make John look up from the book in an "I'm reading. Is anyone here paying attention!?" sort of way which quickly turns to a "What on earth is that boy doing!?" sort of way.

Ian moves to giving me raspberries to the tummy, which are hilarious as well, and then it's time to nurse down.

He was down at 10 or so, fell out of bed about midnight, and then slept until 6am! This is the second big night in a row. We have high hopes for more sleep to come, but are just thankful for these few nights in a row, and feeling productive and on the mend (cold-wise-speaking).

I know you like to see pictures. Here's a picture. Ignore the messy office, if you would please.

Big Boy Bed

Ian moved out of his crib. The crib had a few strikes against it:
1. Drop side is being phased out by all manufacturers. I don't think ours is unsafe, but it is older than we'd thought it was.
2. Ian's armpits are above the crib rail.
3. He likes to jump up and down on his crib mattress, holding onto the crib rail.
4. It's really hard on my back to try to get him in there when he's asleep.

So, we've introduced the toddler bed. It says not to use it with kids under 15 months old, but I think that this recommendation is outweighed by the items above, and he can safely get down from there. Most of the time. We have a blanket and/or pillows under the spots without guard rails.

** We did move it so it's not right under the window.

He really likes his new bed.
Today when he woke up from his nap, I heard a thump (but it was noisy outside, so I wasn't sure if it was him) then a pat pat pat (which I was sure was him running across the room). I ran upstairs to see what he was doing, and he was in the bathroom crying. (Note to self: close bathroom door. He's going to figure out about lifting the toilet lid soon.) I think he'd run in there looking to find someone. And I think he was fairly out of it when that happened, too. He can get down in his sleep!
At night when I've come to get him, he's been asleep and wandering in the top guard rail portion in his sleep. He's doing well so far!

Garden Day

The garden is such a great place to be. Even John now really enjoys the garden. He likes to take off early on Saturdays to get the watering process started and get our vegetables. We stayed until 3pm this Saturday! Weeding, talking to our self-proclaimed "Garden Pest" (the owner), and working on all kinds of issues.

Ian even got to take a nap. It's so nice that he can walk a bit now, he doesn't crawl through the grass, but can walk around to some degree. It keeps him off the ground a bit more. Thankfully, Ian can nap wherever he needs to now. If we're out and about and he needs a nap, he can fall asleep in the car and be transferred, asleep, to a sling, then back to the carseat, and he'll continue his nap. Yesterday after a long day (and brief nap) at the garden, he fell asleep in the car, and slept for 2 hours after he was placed in his crib. He loves his long afternoon naps!

Routines

I have been pondering this cyclical sleep pattern and I have a theory. 

When Ian’s sleep improves, I have more energy and get more work done during the day. Last week: da bomb. It was great. We got so much done. When I get more work done, Ian gets less Mommy time during the day. This week? Not great. I used up a whole lot of mental energy last week, seem to be hormonal, of course made promises based on last week and it’s not working (thereby escalating the non-work problem), and am so frakking tired I can’t see straight. As I tended to Ian’s 2nd wakeup, I noticed that sure, he was nursing, but he was more snuggling. He rubbed my tummy with his warm hand. He’d do the ”I’m full,” pop off and roll away, but then come back and want to find my tummy or hand and then nurse more. But I’m full. But I want more. Poor guy. He’s been so out of sorts today and so clingy. We did give him some ibuprofen this afternoon, and it seemed to help. We think teething is coming or here. He's biting a lot.

Pick Me UP!!

Anyway, to help alleviate this, a more rigid daytime routine might work. I think we could hack this if we enforce a morning nap time, which is the only one he’s been doing lately, a morning walk, which we love and the dog sorely needs, and have much of the afternoon for play and work. That way if we need to get to the big city (like tomorrow) we can set appointments for the afternoon and not worry so much about hitting a naptime. This could help, so that Ian knows when to expect Mommy time and we can kind of normalize the daytime routine, even when we need to work in a trip to the big city.

Now to finish up some work.

Tired boy

Believe it or not, Ian is so tired in these pictuers. He didn't nap at all past noon or so. Not for lack of trying either. Sleep has definitely deteriorated around here, and here's a picture that shows something quite interesting: a 5-day average of naps and average night sleeps. (This is on the sleep spreadsheet, linked at right.)

It's amazing how closely this resembles a regular sine wave for the night sleep! And we're in a trough. At least we can assume it'll get better quickly, right?

Floppy Sleeper

I did find the camera by the way. Good thing too, as we had to use it for work today! But it's in the car, so you get another old pic.

We keep trying out little tiny chairs in stores. They're so amusing. He's not going to be able to get out of one safely yet, but they're so dang cute.

Today was a big day in the city. When Ian gets too tired (but of course you can't sleep when it's so entertaining to look around!) he won't sit in a cart while we're shopping. So, the sling works well for that because he's being held. And he might be able to doze off there. Someday.

For the last few days, Ian has been falling asleep in a strange fashion. When John rocks him down, he rests his head in John's elbow, and is held horizontally across his chest. He settles down and starts to nod off. Then the flopping begins. Other arm. Upright, back to John. Upright, chest to chest. Lying down across the lap, face down (butt in the air of course). Back to sideways in arms. Back to the other side. And the first side again. It goes on and on! When I get him down for a nap or bed, he often needs to flop some and when that's evident, we head for the rocking chair after he nurses. Silliest boy.

We need to strip the diapers again. We've been dealing with a bit of ammonia smell (they shouldn't smell. There's some build-up of sorts) for a few weeks at least, and it's suddenly gotten worse. I think that may be just the last load or two - we're not sure. He woke up screaming last night, and I suspect that the ammonia may have bothered him. We changed his diaper, and he slept from 12:45 until 6:15!! We may change more dipes in the night, or possibly add a stay-dry fleece liner. He's never complained about being soggy all night, but he might sleep a bit better if he were more comfortable. He's not had any rashes at all lately, but he gets his nakey time regularly, morning and night.

He's such a flirt lately too. He smiles at people and shyly turns away. He gets smiles from just about everyone we meet. Well, all of the ladies anyway. What a charmer.

Gardening!

Ian is going to learn a lot at the garden this year, just like the rest of us. He's already tasted grass, leaves, and honey locust seed pods. Oh, well. He'll eat worse, I'm sure. And he realized that this doesn't qualify as food and spit it out. Most of it. I think. He enjoyed watching us work.

We got some planting done! This is our box. In the photo, you're facing east. The west half has straw mixed in, and it's for potatoes and carrots. Two rows of potatoes are in. In addition, there are peas outlining the north and east edges except where the potatoes are.  We have plans for greens in the east half of the box, as well.

Today, we planted a LOT of peas in the community pea bed and more in the community garden main area. Two cups of peas, in all. I love bulk seeds! We'll see how they do. Some of them have to make it, I think. There's a big work party on Thursday to get more planting done and, in particular, community garden planting. There, we're planning pole beans that will climb corn stalks, with squash for ground cover. The squash are going to be a mix of summer and winter squashes. A pumpkin patch potentially in the far west half of the yard, and other fun things too. I have some rainbow chard, and since it's a perennial, it'd be nice to do that in a community planting as well.

Ian slept so well on the way home today that he didn't wake up as he was taken out of the carseat. He was transported to the crib and then slept there for over an hour. Well, it was 3pm and he hadn't had much of a nap yet. He's been tired lately with all of our running around, and it's good that he's getting caught up. If they can get to bed at a good time, Mommy and Daddy will sleep well also.

Smiley

Guess who loves it when Roscoe wants some lap time?

Tonight, he fell asleep easily while playing in his crib. It's so cute to see him rumpled in a heap amongst the stuffed animals, sound asleep. Of course, he woke up an hour later, but that's totally not the point.

Wow, teething.

Teething is just off the hook the last few days! Snotty, low fever, phlegm-y cough. We'd thought it was a lower lateral incisor a bit ago, and there's a tad of a bump there, but none of the gums are really swollen right now. There's a bump at the first molar on the bottom, but we're just not sure what those teeth are trying to accomplish. These are the same symptoms he had a few weeks ago when he got those 4 top ones at the same time. Maybe the top ones are advancing more? We don't know. He's happy otherwise, though, and gets a bit irate only when he's not gotten enough naps, or is hungry, or isn't moving at high speed. Tall orders!

I think two things have turned a corner, however. The sleep - he's regularly sleeping at least one 4 hour-ish chunk each night. That is wonderful. We seem to have a few more hours in the day that we don't need to spend resting. And nursing. He's serious about it again. He's been distractiboy for over 4 months, but now he's spaced out nursing sessions (dropped a daytime feeding, I think, as well as a bazillion night-time feedings) and when he wants to nurse, he pays attention and gets the job done, instead of farting around. To some extent, of course - if the cat or dog or dad come into the room, all bets are off.  What has caused these changes? Maturity? Did he hear the doctor when he said that Ian was "probably getting more than he needs to eat?" (although he said he wouldn't change anything). Did Mommy hear that and doesn't offer nursing as often? Your guess is as good as mine. Either way, we like it.

Also, I think that the difficulties in putting him down at night are easing as well. Last night he was put down asleep, promptly woke up (as usual), and put himself back to sleep. Our next step will be putting him down more drowsy.

Ian says, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a water dish to raid."

Of Walks and Naps

In trying to institute some daily structure and routine, we have locked in the daily walk. Ian had a habit of napping at around noon, but the morning walk messed this up a bit. But he's adjusting. It's really the best time for us to walk after breakfast and fires have been put out. That's about 11-12.

Ian gets a short nap on the walk. He's learning how to get comfy in the different walking modes we have, and we're learning how to help him get more comfortable. The backpack is going to get a pillow.

The backpack is also convenient for having the nap continue as required once we get home. It has a kickstand type thing that makes it stable on the floor. Of course we can't leave him in there without constant supervision - he could wake up and tip himself over. But it's easy enough to set him down in my office while I do a little work, and I take him out at the first peep.

The mei-tai needs a hood to support his head better for naps. Here, John is putting mittens on him in the mei-tai. Don't worry. I pulled his pant leg down so his leg was covered. Ian sleeps well in this carrier with John supporting his head, but it's a tad warm for John sometimes. I'm considering making a lighter-weight one. This one is made of fairly heavy fabric. It's great for a back-carry as well.

Today, we used the stroller. He seems to be just fine without much side head support in the stroller. It reclines nicely. Is the stroller easier with a 22+lb boy? If you're going downhill it is.

A couple of hours after the walk, he's ready for his bigger afternoon nap (unless you count the last few days, where he clearly wasn't. All. Day. Long.) Today, he napped well from 2:45-4:45 and went right down at 9. I think the routine is helping, and daily fresh air is certainly a good thing for everybody.

How do I love being mobile?

Let me count the ways:




Ian has thought to escape the living room a few times! We have to make sure to keep the door downstairs closed! He has lots of time to contemplate this, since he's not napping much right now. But... I'll take it. As the sleep spreadsheet will attest, he's been asleep for over 5 hours, and he's still asleep. And this after approximately no naps yesterday (two short ones).  Some sleep theories say "sleep begets sleep," meaning that the overtired child won't sleep as well. It's true in adults, but only when way overtired. There's also the common-sense "you sleep better when tired." It's 8am and he hasn't nursed since 1:30, and has been asleep since just before 3am. I'm going to call this a fluke for now, but we're hoping it may not be!!

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!