Because he was so congested, Lane and I spent much of the night sitting up, in the bathroom, with the hot shower running. The steam/humidity helped up both breathe easier, and we often times fell asleep in there. Or, we'd sleep together in our bed, both of us propped up more upright than usual. This means Lane got very used to being held, snuggled, and upright rather than swaddled, horizontal, and in his bassinet.
Now that we're both over our illness, we're trying to transition back to our old ways. And man oh man, is it tough. Lane wants to be held, rocked, in our bed. He wants to snuggle, and feel a warm body against him. And while I LOVE snuggling him, I know he needs to learn to sleep on his own.
Last night was ROUGH. Lane went down okay the first time, but then was awake again at 1 AM. I fed him, changed his diaper, reswaddled him, and put him back in his bassinet. Cue the SCREAMING. So I got him out, rocked him, and tried to put him down when he was almost asleep. Nope, not having it. To make a long story short, we ended up being awake for 2 hours in the middle of the night, and Lane ended up in our bed.
Its really tough for me to stick it out in the middle of the night, especially when I have to work the next day. It just always seems easier to put him in bed with me, and tell myself, "I'll work on it tomorrow night".
We've used Dr. Harvery Karp's book "The Happiest Baby on the Block" since Lane was born, and its amazing how well the techniques work. Even Josh, who was hesitant to buy into the hype, now uses the 5 S's on a routine basis. (I'm totally recommending this book to ALL new parents- SO worth reading!) Lane is pretty dependent on 4 of the 5 S's, those being sucking, swinging/swaying, shushing (or white noise), and swaddling. Sometimes when he's just upset and not really sleeping, the stomach/side positioning really helps. I'm hoping that since Lane is now considered out of the "4th Trimester" (read the book to find out what that is!), we can slowly transition some of these S's out. I would love for him to be able to sleep without being rocked/swayed to sleep, and I'm fine with him keeping the swaddling (he stays safely warm without blankets, sucking (self-soothing), and shushing (because we have a white noise machine).
Josh wants to transition Lane into his own room soon, but I'm just not ready. Its so much more convenient to feed him in our room, and to be able to just reach over into his bassinet to replace his pacifier or to check or eyeballs that may be awake.
So, as with all other challenges, this shall pass soon. I know in a few weeks or months when I'm looking back at this post, it'll be hard to remember Lane not being a good sleeper, and this phase won't seem all that bad.
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1 comments:
We didn't move B to his own room until he was 4 months. And he was still swaddled at the time. It became VERY apparent when he was ready to be done with the swaddle and one night we just didn't use it and he never went back.
He also sleeps better in his own room now. My husband's snoring wakes him up. :) You'll know when it's time. It has to be right for you and for him!
You can even try putting him in his own room until the first time he wakes up at night. This is how we started. I put him in his crib so I could do a few things in his room before putting him to bed and I looked over and he was passed out asleep and that is how he spent his first night in his room. :)
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