MLO is firmly in the 9 1/2 months old category and my hopes regarding this age a few months ago were centered around a night of uninterrupted sleep and a less torturous going to sleep routine. I'm proud to say that, largely, we have achieved this. I made my first post almost exactly 3 months ago and it's full of frustration, anxiety, and of course, exhaustion. I noted how my son struggles to go to sleep and stay asleep. I lamented our lack of a firm routine.
Compared to nighttimes in September, going to sleep and staying asleep these days is relatively easy. The little guy starts to get loopy anywhere from 5:00-6:00 PM and we take that as a cue to eat dinner. He has a nice big meal of cereal and veggies then gets changed or bathed, depending on the night. After he has his pajamas on, he cruises around for a bit with either or both of us, in a quiet environment. We let him take the lead and crawl around, play with toys and babble and squeal. Once he rubs his eyes, starts to fuss or loses coordination enough to bump into something and overreact, we pull the trigger. We say goodnight to whoever is not putting him to bed, turn on the white noise, turn off the light, hold him close for a minute or two and lay him in bed. This results in... sleep. No huge cry-fest, no screaming fits, just sleep. It's such a relief. For the most part we get to sleep all night. The exception seems to come when he starts to clearly show teeth under those swollen gums. As they come closer to the surface he gets grumpier and has a propensity to wake in the middle of the night. If that happens, and he hasn't simply gotten his legs shoved uncomfortably into one leg of his jammies, we give him some Advil or try the homeopathic teething remedy I just got, and snuggle him until he calms down. Sometimes, as was the case last night, he won't calm down after we lay him back in bed. After about 30min of complaining I went down and tried to 'reboot' him. I changed his diaper, found his binkie, and sat with him for a few minutes in the rocking chair. When I laid him down he fussed a little, but as far as I could tell, went back to sleep relatively quickly
Napping, as you may know, has never been our strong-suit. This child has an uncanny ability to stay awake, especially if there is something going on. Not the lolling warmth and motion of the ergo baby, not the comfort and calm of his mothers arms can persuade this little mister to close his eyes during the day. I have found that he sleeps best in his crib and relatively well in his car seat. MLO wakes in the morning at around 6:00 (sometimes, to our great displeasure, much earlier) and is usually taking a morning nap by 8:30. That will often last for an hour or longer. Depending on his night of sleep, he will go down again 2-3 hours later, again for about an hour to an hour and a half. For the first 2 naps of the day he goes down easily. If we catch him before he has gotten over-tired we can simply lay him in bed and he'll go right down. Around 4:00 he starts to act like a brat. He rubs his eyes, complains and overreacts. We have dubbed that time, "The Witching Hour" because regardless of how utterly exhausted he acts, he will cry for an hour or more rather than go down for a nap. We have essentially given up on that one.
The biggest napping challenge we have encountered comes when we leave the house. I profoundly dislike trying to fit my errand running and life living into the 2-3 hour intervals between naps. Unfortunately, if MLO falls asleep in the car the likelyhood of A) the drive being longer than 20 minutes or B) him staying asleep when I take the car seat out of the car is slim to none. A greater challenge still, comes when we try to make up for the missed sleep later, say, around 4:00. As you may have guessed by the charming name we have for that time of day, we don't make up for the missed sleep. This means a handful of whining, uncooperative, loud baby and an exhausted mommy. Yay.
So how did we get from 3 months ago having to hold the little bugger down to get him to sleep to the present, when we can simply lay him in his crib and walk away? I have no idea. We did what seemed to work, taking one day at a time, working into our comfort level which stretched with lack of sleep and greater experience. I have listed what I've gleaned from this experience below:
1. There is no hard and fast rule.
2. Things tend to just work themselves out. Trial and error guided us well.
3. Listening to our kid has lead us to sleep. If we pay attention to him, usually we can get him to sleep without a struggle.
4. What worked yesterday might not work today.
5. Our comfort level changed as we worked through the challenge. We used to shrink completely from the idea of simply letting him sob. Until recently, letting him sob was at times the only way to get him to sleep (which we all needed ), and sometimes his sobbing was an indicator that he was in pain, had poop in his pants, was stuck in his jammies or simply needed a binkie and a loving squeeze. Which brings me back to #1.
So I'm pretty sure that I didn't ruin my kid for life by not choosing a sleep method and following it to the letter. I qualify our current sleeping situation as a success and don't regret any of the twists and turns we have taken to get here. As for your own sleep ride, well, I hope you don't have one. I hope your kid is the sort of kid that just falls asleep in his Ergo....
Compared to nighttimes in September, going to sleep and staying asleep these days is relatively easy. The little guy starts to get loopy anywhere from 5:00-6:00 PM and we take that as a cue to eat dinner. He has a nice big meal of cereal and veggies then gets changed or bathed, depending on the night. After he has his pajamas on, he cruises around for a bit with either or both of us, in a quiet environment. We let him take the lead and crawl around, play with toys and babble and squeal. Once he rubs his eyes, starts to fuss or loses coordination enough to bump into something and overreact, we pull the trigger. We say goodnight to whoever is not putting him to bed, turn on the white noise, turn off the light, hold him close for a minute or two and lay him in bed. This results in... sleep. No huge cry-fest, no screaming fits, just sleep. It's such a relief. For the most part we get to sleep all night. The exception seems to come when he starts to clearly show teeth under those swollen gums. As they come closer to the surface he gets grumpier and has a propensity to wake in the middle of the night. If that happens, and he hasn't simply gotten his legs shoved uncomfortably into one leg of his jammies, we give him some Advil or try the homeopathic teething remedy I just got, and snuggle him until he calms down. Sometimes, as was the case last night, he won't calm down after we lay him back in bed. After about 30min of complaining I went down and tried to 'reboot' him. I changed his diaper, found his binkie, and sat with him for a few minutes in the rocking chair. When I laid him down he fussed a little, but as far as I could tell, went back to sleep relatively quickly
Napping, as you may know, has never been our strong-suit. This child has an uncanny ability to stay awake, especially if there is something going on. Not the lolling warmth and motion of the ergo baby, not the comfort and calm of his mothers arms can persuade this little mister to close his eyes during the day. I have found that he sleeps best in his crib and relatively well in his car seat. MLO wakes in the morning at around 6:00 (sometimes, to our great displeasure, much earlier) and is usually taking a morning nap by 8:30. That will often last for an hour or longer. Depending on his night of sleep, he will go down again 2-3 hours later, again for about an hour to an hour and a half. For the first 2 naps of the day he goes down easily. If we catch him before he has gotten over-tired we can simply lay him in bed and he'll go right down. Around 4:00 he starts to act like a brat. He rubs his eyes, complains and overreacts. We have dubbed that time, "The Witching Hour" because regardless of how utterly exhausted he acts, he will cry for an hour or more rather than go down for a nap. We have essentially given up on that one.
The biggest napping challenge we have encountered comes when we leave the house. I profoundly dislike trying to fit my errand running and life living into the 2-3 hour intervals between naps. Unfortunately, if MLO falls asleep in the car the likelyhood of A) the drive being longer than 20 minutes or B) him staying asleep when I take the car seat out of the car is slim to none. A greater challenge still, comes when we try to make up for the missed sleep later, say, around 4:00. As you may have guessed by the charming name we have for that time of day, we don't make up for the missed sleep. This means a handful of whining, uncooperative, loud baby and an exhausted mommy. Yay.
So how did we get from 3 months ago having to hold the little bugger down to get him to sleep to the present, when we can simply lay him in his crib and walk away? I have no idea. We did what seemed to work, taking one day at a time, working into our comfort level which stretched with lack of sleep and greater experience. I have listed what I've gleaned from this experience below:
1. There is no hard and fast rule.
2. Things tend to just work themselves out. Trial and error guided us well.
3. Listening to our kid has lead us to sleep. If we pay attention to him, usually we can get him to sleep without a struggle.
4. What worked yesterday might not work today.
5. Our comfort level changed as we worked through the challenge. We used to shrink completely from the idea of simply letting him sob. Until recently, letting him sob was at times the only way to get him to sleep (which we all needed ), and sometimes his sobbing was an indicator that he was in pain, had poop in his pants, was stuck in his jammies or simply needed a binkie and a loving squeeze. Which brings me back to #1.
So I'm pretty sure that I didn't ruin my kid for life by not choosing a sleep method and following it to the letter. I qualify our current sleeping situation as a success and don't regret any of the twists and turns we have taken to get here. As for your own sleep ride, well, I hope you don't have one. I hope your kid is the sort of kid that just falls asleep in his Ergo....
No comments:
Post a Comment