Here is another post I never put up! This was written January 1st, so Caleb was 5 weeks old.
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Sleeping is a crazy thing with a newborn. It's like there is no differentiation between night and day. The first couple of weeks, Caleb slept in a pack-n-play in our room. Well...he mostly slept in our bed, actually. It was just so cold, and he seemed so little in his big bed. I'd lay him down and a few minutes later I could hear him wiggling, then he'd start to make noises, then whimper, then whine a little, then it would turn into an all-out cry, at which point I'd put him next to me and he'd sleep great. When he would wake up, I'd head to the nursery to feed him (because everything was set up so nicely in there). Jon would get up as well and do laundry or something like that, because really, it could just as well have been daytime.
By the end of two weeks, I was pretty ready for Caleb to move to the nursery. He didn't sleep that well in the pack-n-play, and the nursery really was set up so nicely for him. Jon, however, didn't want to see him go, because he was just so tiny, and could we really trust the baby monitor? What if something happened? Well, we started letting Caleb nap in the nursery during the day, and about that time Jon's mom (Nana) figured out that Caleb slept much better on his side than he did on his back (with the help of a sleep positioner wedge). It wasn't long before we gained confidence in the baby monitor and trusted that our baby would stay alive even if we weren't in the same room with him, so he moved to the nursery at two weeks. There, on a softer mattress and positioned on his side, he slept great! He started sleeping with only one real night-time wakeup, which is the way it still is today at 5 weeks.
Now, he eats every three hours or so. He's a VERY slow eater, taking about an hour when it's all said and done! That gives me two hours in between to get things done. At night, he skips a feeding, so we get a pretty good stint of sleep before he wakes up between 5 and 6 for his next meal. I've learned that at that point, I better get up! He's ready for the day, and if I try to lay back down, I'm struggling with a baby who doesn't want to lay down, and it ends up being the middle of the afternoon before I ever get a shower.
Ah, sleep. The big topic with babies. The common question people ask new moms... "Is he sleeping through the night, yet?" And you want to point at the bags under your eyes and then punch them in the eye. (OK, well, maybe not that extreme, but on some sleep-deprived days, I was pretty cranky!)
ReplyDeleteBut once you figure out your sleep trick with your baby, you stick to it! So, we swaddled Ian for seven months. And now I'm hesitant to give up the pacifier and the bedtime bottle even though we should be working away from those... because in my mind, they are the key to our sleeping success!
Oh... and I have found that Caleb sleeps much better on our bed than in the pack-n-play when he's here. I guess those things aren't very comfy, cuz Ian doesn't sleep well in it either.
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