I Think Someone Switched Babies on Me June 28, 2007
Adam took two naps today totaling 3.5 hours of sleep time. Incredible.
I thought it had backfired on us when I went to nurse him to sleep tonight, though. He nursed for 40 minutes and then was done. Sounds good except for one problem. He was wide awake. I changed his diaper and then tried to get him to nurse again so I could get him to nurse himself to sleep. Nothing doing. So, I wrapped him up in the Miracle Blanket, put him down in his crib, turned up the music a tad, and left the room.
I stood on the other side of the door just knowing that he was going to start fussing any minute. What did that crazy little goober do? He talked to himself for a while, kicked around for a bit, and then went to sleep on his own. I think I’m still in shock.
A Little Less Baffled June 26, 2007
First off, thank you all so much for your comments and suggestions on the whole sleep issue. It does help to know that we’re not the first ones dealing with this.
It’s only been a few days, but I can honestly say that things are a little better. Saturday, after Adam only took one 40 minute nap, I decided that we were going to make every attempt to get him to bed earlier. It didn’t matter that we had tried the early bedtime thing before without success. He needed some sleep.
So, we started getting him ready for bed around 6:30. We did the regular routine, and then I brought him into the bedroom to nurse. Wouldn’t you know it, he was asleep in his crib before 7:30.
Yep, I also decided we were just going to try the crib again see what happened. I was fully prepared to have him wake up an hour or two later. Well, he stirred a bit at 10:00 but settled back down to sleep after I turned his night time music back on. He stirred again at 3:00, but again went back to sleep. He didn’t wake up with his “you better feed me now” cry until 5:00, an astounding 9.5 hours after going to sleep. I nursed him and put him back in the crib, and he slept until 7:10.
I knew better than to post about it on Sunday, because the last thing I needed was to jinx myself, but Sunday night and last night went relatively well also. I got him down at 7:25 Sunday, he woke up at 2:00 and 5:00 to nurse, going back down in the crib easily after each time, and woke for the day at 6:40. Last night he went down at 7:40, woke up screaming at 10:00 (I think it was the teething), nursed then and again at 5:20, and woke for the day at 7:00.
I feel so much better knowing he’s getting almost 2 more hours of sleep at night than he had previously been getting. Besides the early bedtime, which is obviously huge, we also changed a couple more things. We moved the crib to the foot of our bed. I’m not sure if it helps him to be closer to us, but it sure is easier to check on him that way. I also asked Dan to construct a makeshift cover for the huge ass arched window we have in our bedroom. Even with blackout curtains on the regular part of the window, it was just way too bright in the bedroom. Now we have a custom made (fittingly constructed from a Pack n’ Play box and a Huggies box) shade for our arch, and it makes a big difference.
I think the early bedtime is key, though. It sucks that Adam won’t get to hang out with Dan during the week now because Dan rarely gets home before 7:30, but we need to get that little man some sleep. I feel more comfortable with him sleeping in his crib, too. I like that he has his own sleeping space, plus then he can sleep with the mattress propped up at an angle which is better for his reflux.
Naps the past couple of days have still been difficult. Sunday he took one 1 hour nap. Yesterday he took a 40 minute nap in the morning and wouldn’t nap in the afternoon. He was so tired, though, so I popped him in the car and got him to fall asleep that way. He ended up napping for an hour and a half.
This morning I decided to try something different. I figured the earlier bedtime seemed to work so well that we might as well try an earlier nap time, too. I got him to sleep by 8:30, an hour and a half after he had woken up, and he napped for exactly an hour. For nap #2 I got him down a little after noon, so 2.5 hours after he had woken up from nap #1, and again he slept for an hour. He went right to sleep after nursing both times. I went ahead and let him sleep on the mattress on our bedroom floor instead of putting him in the crib. I might have gotten away with it, but I figure one step at a time.
Unfortunately the early naps backfired a little when he laughed in the face of my attempt to get him to take a third nap. His second nap ended so early in the day that it was a long time until bedtime. Two naps are a good step in the right direction, though, and I got him down to sleep tonight even a little earlier at 7:00 to compensate for the early nap situation. This is all definitely a work in progress.
So yeah, we’re still nursing to sleep, but that’s what’s working right now. I honestly don’t have it in me to let him cry himself to sleep. He really has already spent too much of his short life crying due to all of the GI/reflux issues. We’re making progress on that front, too, and hopefully I’ll get around to posting an update on that whole situation at some point.
The past couple of days have really seemed like a step in the right direction. I guess earlier really is better for him. I think he was just too tired to sleep before. You’ve really got to use some backwards logic with these little people.
And now, on a completely unrelated note, I just had to share this picture of Adam sitting up on his own. You think he’s just a little excited about his latest accomplishment?
This Sleep Thing Baffles Me June 23, 2007
Sleep is one of those things I didn’t have to worry about in the early days of parenthood. Oh sure, I worried about not getting enough for myself, but I never worried about Adam not getting enough. He slept all the time. Now is a different story, however. We’re having some serious sleep issues these days. Let’s start with night time sleep.
The only place Adam would sleep at night after we came home from the hospital was his bouncer. We tried everything else we could think of (and purchased all kinds of stuff that we didn’t end up using) but that’s the only place he’d sleep so we went with it. We tried transitioning him to the crib at one point before he was diagnosed and treated for reflux, and he ended up spitting up both through his mouth and nose during the night the few times we tried. Well then after his reflux diagnosis it just made sense to leave him in the bouncer.
Now he’s just getting too darn big for the bouncer. We’ve tried putting him to sleep in the crib, but he ends up waking up after 1-2 hours. He hates that darn crib. We moved the mattress from our guest bed to our bedroom floor so I’d have a place to nurse and change him without disturbing Dan too much. He’ll sleep on the mattress with me just fine, usually only waking once to nurse just like he did when in the bouncer, so that’s what we’ve been doing the past few nights. I don’t know if this is a permanent solution or not.
One thing that really confuses me about night time sleep is bedtime. Adam usually goes to sleep somewhere around 9 or 9:15. He usually nurses for about an hour before that. I keep reading about early bedtimes, but it just doesn’t seem to work for him. We’ve tried going through his regular bedtime routine earlier by varying amounts, and he still doesn’t go to sleep until 9 or 9:15. He’ll play and stall or just nurse longer.
Naps are even more of a problem. He is so not napping well these days. Today he took one 40 minute nap. That’s it. In the early days he just nursed himself to sleep and slept in my arms. I guess some people would think that’s where the problem lies, but nursing him to sleep just seems so natural to me. The problem is that he’s not doing it consistently for nap time any more. He still seems like he’s nursing himself down most of the time, but then he finishes and then just looks up at me with big sleepy eyes.
So, what do I do then? I’ve tried putting him down in the crib. That’s a joke. He just won’t go to sleep there even if he’s way tired. He’ll just lay there, and then eventually he’ll start fussing to get out. I’ve tried nursing him on the mattress in the bedroom and then laying him down on the mattress when he’s done. This works some of the time. Other times he just lays there for a while talking to himself and then starts protesting.
I’ll admit to getting desperate, putting him in the car seat, and driving him around until he falls asleep. Sometimes that’s the only thing that will work.
I’m getting really stressed out about the whole thing, because it’s obvious that he needs more sleep than he’s getting. I feel like I’m failing at part of my job as a parent. I mean, getting only 10 hours of sleep a day can’t be good for him. Sometimes he’ll get 11 or 12, but even that doesn’t seem like enough for a 5.5 month old.
I know I can’t handle the whole cry it out thing, so that’s out. I don’t really know what to do. I know I can’t expect too much right now because he’s teething and that screws everything up. However, this has been going on longer than the teething has. It’s been going on too long. I’m sure the whole reflux situation doesn’t help either. I know eventually things will get better, at least I hope they will, but it still worries me right now.
Man, sometimes I wonder if this is the same baby who slept through the entire night at 3 months and napped throughout the day without any problems whatsoever. We’re so not there anymore.
5 Months June 10, 2007
I know it’s been forever and a year since I blogged. I just can’t ever seem to sit down at the computer long enough to get a whole post out.
Adam turns 5 months old today. My little guy isn’t quite as little now. He’s up to 17 pounds and 26.5 inches. He definitely takes after Dan in that respect.
His reflux issues have been giving him a tough time lately. We got into see a pediatric GI on Tuesday who changed his meds a bit and suggested than in addition to my dairy free diet that I eliminate soy, eggs, nuts, and fish for the time being. We’ll keep him on the new meds for a while before starting to reintroduce those things into my diet to see if they’re causing an issue.
I have to admit that being on such a limited diet is kicking my ass, but it will be worth it if it helps. It’s a great weight loss tool, though. It was weird to step on the scale this morning and think that I really need to find a way to not lose any more weight. I’m not sure I’ve ever had that thought before.
I really just want Adam to feel better. It will be nice when the days of spitting up, major fussing, and dose after dose of meds are behind us.
We’ve also been dealing with Adam’s plagiocephaly issue. We saw the specialist on Monday who confirmed our suspicions when she diagnosed him with torticollis. For the first few months Adam would only lay his head to the right. He also strongly preferred to look to the right. It turns out that that’s due to the fact that the muscles on that side of his neck are much tighter than the other. We now have to do stretching exercises three times a day in order to stretch those muscles out.
Since he always laid his head to the right, that side of his head became flattened. He had a head scan on Friday to determine the severity of the plagiocephaly, and his measurements put him on the moderate to severe border. We’ll continue the exercises, and he’ll go back for another scan in a little over a month to see what progress he’s made. That will determine if he’ll need a helmet or not.
On the non medical side of things, Adam is into some cute things these days. He laughed his first real laugh a couple weeks ago, and has done it a couple of times since. It’s music to my ears. He also recently found his feet. He loves to play with those feet.
Breastfeeding is going well. I’d love to post more about that sometime. I’m so glad I stuck in out in the beginning. It was hard then, and it’s a little challenging now given the whole food sensitivity/diet situation, but I am so thankful for our good breastfeeding relationship. Even those challenges don’t give me a second’s hesitation about continuing on. (Plus, the goober wants nothing to do with a bottle anyway. He knows what he likes.)
So, that’s how things have been going. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve found dealing with everything that comes along with the reflux issue difficult. There has been more than one occasion when Adam and I have been crying in unison. I know it’s temporary, though, and it most certainly doesn’t keep me from enjoying the heck out of our little guy.
When he was born that I thought I couldn’t feel more thankful that he was in our lives. I was wrong. I just feel more thankful every day.
