Sleep, What's That??

On a great note, this boy is growing and changing! We can barely keep him in a bouncy seat or a swing these days. He is pushing himself right out of them. The same goes for attempting to change his diaper, he is scooting and squirming all over the place.  He is holding the pacifer in much better these days and now that we have switched to a Wubanub, he can grab it and keep it in! Yea! Thank you, Heather.

This is a Wabanub. It's a pacifer with a light weight animal ( his is a dog) attached to the pacifer end to help stabilize it and keep it in their mouth and to give them something to grab on to.




 He is also laughing up a storm! They are the sweetest, most beautiful giggles you have ever heard!

 He is grabbing everything. I usually put him in his bouncer that sits on the couch while I pump in the morning. This way I can talk and sing to him. Now, he is grabbing and pulling the cord to my breast pump and pulling my breast pump bag off the edge of the couch...he is turning into one busy man. I can barely imagine how he will be in a few months! He also spent his very first night in the crib last night!! Whooo hooo!! How liberating! I have been really avoiding moving him as I knew it would be difficult for me to have him so far from me. I did go into a slight panic last night and thought about just sleeping on his bedroom floor. But I resisted and just turned up his video monitor really loud and checked it often through the night. But, amazingly enough, I slept great!   But the time has come, he is 16 weeks, and Mom and Dad need our room back!  He has been taking naps in his crib for a while to get him used to the new sleeping quarters. He did pretty well, too! He slept from 8pm to 4 am. After that things kinda went down hill. The ' 45 minute intruder' finally caught up him. He woke at 4 am, 5, and then 6. Don't you know all these awakening were all on my night shift ( Kevin takes all awakenings from 11am-3am and I take 3am-7am). I used to get up and do all the night awakenings, but now that he is not needing to feed much during the night, if any,  and he has reverted back to his newborn night waking status, AND since his days are so tiring for me,  Kevin is splitting the duties.

So it looks like Preston has done a little regression on his sleep habits. He is 16 weeks, and this has been going on or a few weeks now.  We have nooo idea what has happened, maybe just some developmental thing, but it's not great for any of us. We're tired, he's tired.

Preston suffers from attacks of the ' 45 minute intruder', as it's been dubbed from parents before us, horribly! This intruder has his number and won't give it back! An infant's sleep cycle is 45 minutes long, so when they complete a cycle the idea is for them to transition into the next one. Well, they begin a sleep cycle in a very very light state of sleep, so anything can easily wake them at this stage. Preston, like a lot of infants, has difficulty transitioning to a new sleep cycles. He wakes up and can't get himself back to sleep. This has become our nightmare. He takes 45 minute naps, then wakes and is still tired, can't get himself back to sleep, so I have to soothe him back to sleep, which is an elaborate 30 minute process, and it doesn't always work to keep him asleep. So I soothe him for 20-30 minutes before every nap and in the middle of sleep cycles about 10 times a day. We have created a "perfect" sleepy environment for him, or so we think, but we are still losing the battle. So Kevin suggested that we just let him stay awake after 45 minute naps from here on out and stop jumping through hoops to give him more sleep, even though every doc and baby sleep book will tell you that a 45 minute nap is not long enough to even be counted as a nap..and he wakes up crying from every 45 minute nap. Poor baby.  We figure we'll just let him work getting over the ' 45 minute intruder' on his own. Kevin thinks it stresses us and him out too much to fight for longer naps. I agree. It has been killing me during the day. For the last month I have not been going out of the house in an effort to help his sleep schedule become more predictable. Well, it has not paid off and has only left me exhausted mentally. I became a slave to his routine. Wrong move. So revamping my thinking on this one.

Maybe because he is not sleeping well during the day, maybe, he has also stopped sleeping through the night like he was. He is now waking many, many times, and not to nurse, but because he woke himself up and he doesn't know how to get himself back to sleep. Again, it takes a long time to get him back to sleep, so we're up for 45 minutes at a time multiple times a night doing just the right "bounce" and " shush" until he is in a deep enough sleep that we can lay him down without him waking.

I think we have created a little monster in our ignorance about baby sleep habits. But we just didn't know all there is to know. What I mean is, we've spoiled him to too many sleep props, now he requires all of them in order to get to sleep, and it is exhausting for us to keep up the routine. He has to be swaddled still, which is not good as he is rolling over; he has to be rocked a certain way for a loong time; he has to be laid down totally asleep; he has to have it dark and a sound machine on for him to fall asleep. As you can see this is not exactly easy considering how many times a day and how often this needs to be done. This is why we're slaves to him.  In our defense, we just didn't know that we could encourage such strong expectations  by doing all of these things for him to get him to sleep when he was younger. Now we have to find a way to break away from it, and he is protesting!

As I mentioned the days for me have been really, really tough lately. I guess I was completely wrong to listen to well meaning friends who told me that after 12 weeks life and his sleep would be 'so much better'. Well, it's not for him. Maybe this means he's a genius! Ya know they always say the poor sleepers are the super smarties! LOL Anyway, telling someone how rough things are is one thing, but experiencing it for yourself is totally different. I went out for a few hours yesterday afternoon as I helped throw one of our friends a baby shower. So this meant Kevin was on full time Preston duty from about 745am until about 1pm. I left the house at 920 am and by 10am the texts from Kevin started flowing in. Things weren't working at home with Preston, who was apparently 'screaming bloody murder', and wouldn't go to sleep. ...


From Kevin: " Holding him, not sleeping, screaming bloody murder. You better stay out as long as possible because when you get back there will be work for you when you get home. LOL"

" ...about to swaddle him. Stupid sack ( Halo sleep sac that we are trying to transition him to in order to get him out of the swaddle) does not work!"

" Parenthood is kinda sucking right now."

You get the gist.

Although it made me anxious that I knew Kevin was having such a hard time and poor Preston was so uncomfortable, I have to admit I was glad Kevin was getting to experience what I do for Preston for 10 hours a day before Kevin gets home to help. I've read all the books, I've read and researched everything you can think of, I've hit the blogs, and asked every friend I have who has kids....and I've tried everything I can think of to help this boy sleep better. We had a moment last week when he was crying and was soo tired but wouldn't sleep and I was crying asking him to tell me what to do for him. LOL  Maybe we're doing something wrong, I don't know, but I know that I have to get out of my own head about it. It is what it is, just a phase ( hopefully!) and we need to stop obsessing over it, just get through it, and let him work it out as he continues to evolve his sleep habits.

Other news...

He has also been drooling EXCESSIVELY! Like, soaking through multiple onesies a day--with drool down to the diaper and is far more fussy than he has ever been. Teething, maybe? Or getting ready to teeth??

It is our prayer that God offers us peace and encouragement and that we remember that this will not last forever. May we still find joy in these moments. :)