Okay, seriously?
Miles was making so much progress in the sleep department. He had slept through the night several times and usually only woke up once or twice.
Not lately.
Over the last week or so, he has been waking up every one to two hours every night. I don’t know what the problem is. He’s not hungry; he either nurses only a little bit or declines it entirely. He just can’t seem to stay asleep. It’s not too difficult to get him back to sleep, but it’s not exactly easy to function during the day when you never really get a full sleep cycle.
We’ve stopped swaddling him due to the heat; that might be part of the problem. But seriously, we can’t swaddle him forever, and it seemed like a good time to quit. My friend from playgroup yesterday, whose son is just a little older than Miles, said he went through the same thing right at this age for a couple of weeks. I really hope it’s just a phase.
I’m thinking about sleeping in another room this weekend and letting Denny deal with him overnight. Denny is a heavier sleeper than I am, so he might let him fuss more than I do. I never really let him get to the point of crying; I wake up the second Miles starts thrashing and try to get him calmed down before it becomes a full-on scream-fest. Maybe if I let him go for a while, he’d settle himself down. I don’t know. I’ve been so tired that I’ve been eating crappily and not exercising, which only makes me feel worse.
I got a couple of books from the library yesterday on the topic, but I’m not very far into them yet. So far, the major focus seems to be getting a baby to sleep, which isn’t really a problem; he falls asleep with no big fuss. It’s just staying asleep that’s a problem.
I get so annoyed with him, and then after some coffee and a few of his big, sunshiney smiles, I forgive him.
So it goes.
Keston turned 8 months yesterday and he has yet to break the 4-hours-at-a-time stretch at night and usually it’s 2 or 3. Every. Single. Night. We, too, swaddled him and it took us AGES for us to get it out of him, and even now when he’s worked up, it’s the only thing that does the trick. We’ve gone around and around — milk allergies, being hungry, being hot, being cold, being wet…gah! The only success we’ve had so far is cloth diapers let him sleep longer, probably because he’s full of pee and gets wet in a hurry. That’s the only thing that’s let us hit longer times.
Swaddling works sometimes because we have an in-window A/C unit and keep our bedroom at a frosty 64F during the summer nights so we can sleep well, so he doesn’t get hot usually.
Hopefully for you it’s just a phase, and short one at that. One woman I was talking to said hers didn’t sleep through the night till 3. I just groaned.
Hey, Aprille-
I don’t ever want to seem like a bossy older cousin, even though I definitely have been that in the past,so I hope advice doesn’t come across that way. But I was thinking, it might be time to have Miles sleep in his own room. We found that both Max and Meredith slept much better, from about 3 months on, after we moved them to their own space. The doctors, and things that I have read, say that babies can be very light sleepers, and just being in the same room with others can disturb their sleep. The other things that doctors have told me is that everyone goes through sleep cycles, which I know, but they said it is very normal for people to wake up quite a few times during the night. Adults know how to roll over, look at the clock, etc., and go right back to sleep. Babies need to learn how to do this, too. (Telling time might be a bit of a stretch at this point, but you get what I mean.) It could be that because he knows you are right there, and because he has in the past been soothed back to sleep by nursing, this is what he naturally thinks will help him now. But he doesn’t really need that anymore. Just something to think about. I also think if kiddos can put themselves back to sleep in the middle of the night, than the whole going to sleep initially on their own is a lot easier.
You might be nervous that you wouldn’t hear him if he’s across the hall, so you might be tempted to put the monitor right by your ear, but others have advised me against doing that, too, because you will still hear it everytime he stirs and you won’t get any more sleep. You will definitely hear him when he needs you, without a monitor. Or at least you might try turning the monitor down a little bit, so you don’t hear everything.
If you’re not ready to have him away, having a little bit of “white noise” is your room, a fan or dehumitifier, or something, might muffle some of the normal “people noises” and help him sleep better, too.
okay – that’s enough suggestions for today. I hope you all start getting a little more sleep! Love, Debi
What Debi says rings true for us, too. We had Aidan in our Arm’s Reach for… maybe two months, maybe even less. I slept fine, but Tiffany would wake up at the slightest murmur from him. We moved him to his own room, and his crib, and we all slept better. With Oliver (baby #2) we barely bothered to have him in our room. We certainly didn’t bother setting up the Arm’s Reach.
I’ve found, with Oliver, that picking him up when he is whimpering, or waiting until he is in full throat, seems to make little difference in how quickly (or not) he goes back to sleep.
That said, we wish you much fortitude. I understand that as parents, we will never get back to our old sleeping patterns now. Damn kids.
Thanks for the advice, all. I don’t think you were being bossy, Debi! You’ve done this more than I have.
I too think it’s time to get him into his crib, if for no other reason than I’m a better mommy for him during the day if I’m not cranky and tired.
These phases, even if you’re able to recognize them, never get any easier to deal with. And there will be more.
Also, some good advice from our favorite nurse-midwife: Throw away all your books.
I was going to post a comment but your friends all said what I had to say. Whew. That was easy.
one other thing- we always noticed that Guthrie had a few (sometimes several) nights of waking randomly for no reason right before she was going to do something amazing. are you sure Miles isn’t going to start crawling? even if it’s on his back? 🙂 which I would kind of pay money to see.
we’re getting ready to put Guthrie in her own room and after 20 months in our bed– I think we’re all finally ready. Funny how every family works differently – which is so nice because if we all had to do it the same way well, that would just be awful. And then what would the write the books about? Good for you for figuring out what works for you, Denny and Miles. That right there is what good parenting is all about.
and I know this is in response to a later post, but we don’t have wireless at our new house yet and I’m getting caught up at Panera’s, but Happy Birthday Miles! I cannot believe you are six months old. Your parents are going to be utterly amazed at how fun the next 6 months are going to be! and then the 6 months after that will be pretty rad too!