Who needs sleep? Really, it's overrated and wastes perfectly good use of time...okay, so I can only wish I had that mentality. In all reality, I'm
begging for some descent, uninterrupted sleep. I mean look at this picture, it's hard to believe in just a couple of hours he's going to be wide awake and crying...his bedtime routine is so perfect, he loves every part of it, and does a great job putting himself to sleep:
Our poor bub used to be such a great sleeping baby. For quite some time his sleeping pattern was from 8 pm until 4 am, where he'd eat and then fall right back to sleep for a couple more hours. Shortly after school began and 2 teeth arrived, this pattern has changed and has been kicking our butt. He for a little over a month now, his sleeping habits have changed to getting up 2-3 times per night and no longer going straight back to sleep. This is new territory. We aren't quite sure how to handle it. We've talked with this pediatrician and it seems that it could be a number of issues: his HORRIBLE reflux (which have I mentioned is worse than ever?); teething; my need to "soothe" him during his teething issues by nursing him in the middle of the night when he'd wake (hence creating the need to eat for comfort rather than hunger...great); habit from the previous reason; and congestion is the very latest. Oh yeah, and he has narrow nasal passages.
It's gotten to the point that on several nights we've started a not-so-good habit of pulling him in bed with us by the 3rd time of waking just to get
some sleep. Yes, I don't want to start this habit nightly...because we never did with Nolan, but there comes a point after arguing with each other, ourselves, feeling frustrated, exhausted, and just plain guilty for getting upset that you pull baby in bed with you to put an end to it for the sake of getting a couple of straight hours of sleep.
The pediatrician has assured me that it's perfectly okay to try the "cry-it-out" method and actually really encouraged us to. Well, we tried. By night 3 or 4 I couldn't take it anymore because he didn't just cry-it-out for a short amount of time...this kid is stubborn. We'd start by not going in for 10 mins, then would comfort him w/out picking him up (that, by the way, makes it WAY worse...he does better when we don't even go in at all and by better it's still a HORRIFIC cry). Then, we'd increase the increments of time that we'd go in. He is not responsive to this method at. all. He continued this for OVER 2 hours easily. After a few nights of trying, I threw in the towel. It wasn't good for him, Brian, or myself. I figured I could nurse him for 10 mins and have him back to sleep rather than losing more sleep.
The last couple of nights we've also tried a big no-no that I'm rather leary of. When he's waken up (around 11 or midnight), we've turned him on his tummy and he's slept until we get him up at 6 a.m. It's not as big of a no-no as you might think, because he can roll over both ways - he just doesn't do it on his own during the night. I also know that he'd sleep probably 100% of the night if I'd let him sleep with a blanket because he appears to be a "blankie" baby. He will grab it during the day, nestle his face into it completely and be out within 2 minutes. However, I WILL NOT do this at nighttime. There's absolutely no way. I figure as frustrating as this process has been, it'll be over before we know it. It has, however, made me deeply appreciate how easy we had it with Nolan in sleeping aspects.
What Parker lacks in sleep, he makes up for eating wise compared to Nolan's baby years. He absolutely LOVES everything about eating baby food. He loves rice cereal, oatmeal, bananas, peaches, pears, sweet potatoes, & the latest...peas. His mouth is WIDE open between each and every bite, hardly allowing me time to scoop up more. His arms fly and his legs bounce up and down in anticipation of food being made and when it's brought to his mouth. I love it. Tonight I used my BRAND NEW Baby Bullet for the first time. Nolan is just as happy about it as I am :)
PS: I welcome any and all sleeping suggestions, because as I mentioned this is new for us - even Parker started out SO well. Also, just a side note, even with him missing so much night sleep, he by no means wants to make up for it during the day. He never sleeps more than 2-2 1/2 hours total throughout the day and he's SUCH happy baby!
