So when I ran into a friend and she asked me how we were doing in the grocery store...I strayed from my standard, "great!" to "I'm tired." And she proceeded to tell me how her baby sleeps whenever she wants to, wherever she wants to AND sleeps through the night.
Here's the thing, I don't schedule for nighttime sleep, although it is a great bonus. I schedule for daytime sanity. Get it? When Mack's is awake, I/we are completely engaging him...reading, talking, exercising him...so when it is his naptime...I want to do the the same, OR give Charlie that one-on-one attention that he so badly needs right now. That being said, he needs his daytime sleep, that is what makes him such a happy baby...rarely whining or crying during waketime.
So here's the deal...
This child is making me question everything I've ever believed about sleep training/babywise. When people say, babywise didn't work for them, I understand, now, why it would be so easy to quit and chalk it up to "not working." This child is all over the place, making him the most inconsistent sleeper in the entire universe (or out of my two kiddos)! NAPS! What are those? This child has never taken a good morning nap. The morning nap is so crucial to how the rest of the day plays out and he consistently wakes at 45 minutes (damn intruder) and screams for the rest of nap. He's hungry, right? Nope. I try feeding him. Uninterested. He just takes shorts naps, right? Nope. He's tired. If I go pick him up, he settles down immediately and falls back asleep within 10 minutes. So hold him, right? That defeats the purpose! He has learned to bridge the sleep transition during his other naps...so why the horror moving screaming at nap #1.
So here's the other deal...
Charlie's nights just progressively got longer and one day (at about 4 months) he was sleeping 12 straight hours at night, never looking back. Mack's longest nighttime stretch could be anywhere from four to ten hours depending on the night and I have no idea what dictates his wake-up. I have recorded every single feeding and nap in this child's life since the day he was born and there is absolutely no method to his madness. Last week, to my sister's gentle urging, I had him cry-out his second/third wake-up and it was an absolutely horrendous night...but guess.what? He's only woken up once per night since. This has helped tremendously (thanks for the advice, Jenni) and I'm starting to see the light...at nighttime.
My sanity is waning, any help would be much appreciated.
3 comments:
Hi Erica, you don't know me but I found your blog through a friend. I had a few suggestions for better daytime sleep, I too, know ow important those naps can be to developing good sleep habits. We are a babywise family too. Try being totally consistent for 1-2 weeks, same routine, same bed, comfort him the same at his wake-up. Try white noise, swaddling again (?). All these things help and allow him to understand what to expect. I'm assuming it is just part of the 4 month sleep regression and he'll grow out of it in no time. Good Luck! I love reading your blog, I hope this helps!
Kath
Hey Erica - do you use a sleep positioner? Does it work? Alex has officially started to sleep worse swaddled and I am going cold turkey to the sleep sack. Wanted to know if sleep positioner helped. Troubleshooting sleep in infants is exhausting. Reese slept on her stomach starting at 10 weeks and slept 10-12 hours a night....Alex is not as big or strong as Reese was at 10 weeks. Thanks!
So, we cold turkeyed the swaddle too. He started soothing with his hands and I wanted to give him that option to see if that would help him fall back asleep. For naps he sleeps on his tummy and we actually still use the rock n play sleeper at night...I think that serves a better purpose for holding them tight. Jenni said you had one too, no?
The sleep positioner was kinda flimsy...I used it half-halfheartedly.
I'm not really helping, but I wouldn't hesitate to try her on her tummy. It seems to serve them better than anything else I've tried. Good Luck Carl...I can't wait to meet her.
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