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parenthood after dealing with male factor infertility and multiple IVF cycles

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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?

• Posted in : our main man
• Author : amanda

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