Archive for April, 2007
Easter Weekend in CT
We all had a great time visiting family in Connecticut this weekend for Easter. Natalie was quite something—it seemed like she smiled and giggled the whole weekend, despite only taking cat naps instead of her usual 2-3 hour naps. I wish I took more pictures, especially of Natalie, Bonnie & Margaret coloring eggs and Natalie and Jodi at the Papaya Patch. I also neglected to capture Natalie and Uncle David. Oh dear.
Anyway, here are some highlights:
Natalie turns 4 months old:
Natalie and Aunt Elaine’s baby, Poppy:
Four generations:
Natalie and Dad playing the piano at Aunt Bonnie’s house:
It’s Ten O’Clock…
…and Natalie is asleep in her crib! The boppy seemed to help last night. She slept in the crib from 11 pm to 2 am, at which point I brought her into bed with us. She may have gone back to sleep in her crib, but I was pretty tired and decided not to push our luck. Plus I had to work today, so I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time trying to get her to sleep.
Today while I was at work, Nama had some trouble getting Natalie to sleep for a nap. She is used to being nursed to sleep and since I wasn’t there, that couldn’t happen. So after walking her and rocking her to no avail, Nama put Natalie in her crib, and she calmed down and went to sleep! And slept for 50 minutes!! I’m sorry that my Mom had to struggle with a crying granddaughter, but was very pleased that Natalie can, in fact, get to sleep without nursing or being in the swing. My guess is that she won’t do that when I’m around to nurse her, though.
My fingers are crossed that we have another good night tonight!
Oh! Almost forgot…Natalie rolled over today!!! She was on her quilt on the floor in the living room and I was watching her from the kitchen. She rolled from her tummy to her back and I felt so proud. Now if only she’ll do it for the camera…
Sleep…
It seems that sleep is a hot issue with babies! Recently I was reading an article about sleep that advised parents to lie (if necessary) when people ask how their baby is sleeping. The author recommended lying to avoid unsolicited advice or worse, bragging and condescension. For example:
Well-meaning person asks, “is your baby sleeping through the night, YET?” [meaning, if your baby isn't sleeping through the night, there must be something wrong with you, your baby, or both]
Sleep-deprived parent replies, “baby is sleeping just fine, thanks for asking.” [complete and total lie]
But since this is a blog, I’m going to be honest about the issues we’ve been having with sleep. Advice and wisdom is welcome in the comments section! But please refrain from “you guys are idiots, what the heck are you doing?” type comments…
Now, compared to me (ask my poor mother who nursed me EVERY TWO HOURS around the clock for FIVE MONTHS!! Thanks, Mom!) Natalie has always been a good sleeper. While she never slept through the night, she was relatively easy to get to sleep and it was pretty easy to get her from where ever she fell asleep (usually nursing or in the car) to the crib or the swing. When she was littler, she slept great in her moses basket or her bassinet. At night she slept anywhere from 3 to 5, sometimes even 6 or 7 hours at a time, with no real encouragement or “sleep training” from us. When she woke up, I nursed her and she went back to sleep with no problem. Under those circumstances, I’d never really found getting up in the middle of the night to feed her to be a hardship.
The night of her stroller accident and for a week afterward, she slept at most 2 hours at a time. But after a trauma like that, and with her nose all stuffy, a disruption in sleep was to be expected. About a week after the accident, she slept for 5 hours at a time again.
The only thing we’ve done to encourage healthy sleep is to have a routine and a bed time. Each night, we start getting Natalie ready for bed around 8 pm. We take her into her room, change her, swaddle her, read a story. Then I nurse her, Chris fills up her humidifier and turns in on high—we found Natalie likes white noise—and when she falls asleep nursing, I put her in the crib, usually at 9 pm. All in all sleep hadn’t really been an issue, until…
Last Monday, we followed the routine, and she woke up to nurse at 1 am. No problem. She fell asleep nursing and I put her back in the crib as usual. But instead of staying asleep, she woke up and smiled. I figured she wasn’t done eating, so I nursed her some more. She fell asleep, I put her in the crib, she woke up. She was a little fussy, so I unswaddled her, thinking maybe she needed a diaper change. She started to laugh and giggle. If I hadn’t been so tired (by this point it was 2 am and I hadn’t yet gone to bed) it may have been amusing. I realize it could have been much worse—she could have been awake and screaming. Natalie was just awake and happy, but I kept feeling like she was laughing at me. Like, “Ha ha! You think I’m going back to sleep?!!?? You got another thing coming, Mommy!!!”
I tired nursing again to no avail, and by 3 am, I was desperate for her (well, really me) to sleep, so I brought her downstairs, put her in the swing, and I slept on the couch. She slept for 3 more hours.
The next night, the same basic events happened, only her initial sleeping in the crib only lasted 2.5 hours instead of 4. I repeated the swing/sleep on the couch deal.
The night after that, she only slept 1 hour before I caved and put her in the swing.
By Thursday, she only lasted in the crib 5 minutes.
Oy vey.
Friday night, we didn’t even attempt to put her to sleep in the crib, so the bedtime routine went out the window. She slept in the swing until we were ready to go to sleep, and then I brought her in bed with us, where she slept fine. Luckily, I’ve mastered nursing laying down, so when she’s hungry, I barely need to wake up. And no, I’m not worried about rolling over on her. There are some great articles about the benefits of safe co-sleeping. Actually, co-sleeping would be a fine arrangement, only Natalie needs to go to bed a lot earlier than I’m ready to. So she needs to sleep somewhere until she wakes up for first night feeding.
It became harder and harder to get her to sleep in the swing. Last night, Chris resorted to holding a bottle in her mouth while the swing was moving in order to get her to sleep.
While we haven’t really been loosing any sleep, sleeping on the couch was making my sciatica act up and I worried that we’re getting into some really bad habits (although apparently 4 months is a bad time for sleep). Plus, she’s going to outgrow the swing eventually.
Since we’re not willing to let her “cry it out,” we had to find some other sleep solutions. I’ve noticed that Natalie sleeps better when her legs are curled up. Since she moves and startles herself, that means they need to be restricted in some way. I’ve also noticed that she likes to turn her face to the side—when she falls asleep nursing, she rests her cheek against me and when she sleeps in the swing, she pushes her face against the side, which is angled so she doesn’t have to turn her face 90 degrees. I also remembered that when she was littler, she liked to sleep in her boppy.
Today, I had an idea based on these observations…I thought maybe if her boppy was in the crib, close to the end where her feet could be resting against the edge, maybe she would feel more cuddled and therefore sleep longer. We have a great monitor that sounds an alarm if her breathing stops, so I felt safe doing this (Thanks, Elaine, Bonnie, Greta & Grandma!).
So, tonight we followed our normal bedtime routine, with her boppy waiting for her in the crib. When I noticed that she was asleep, but still nursing, I decided to nurse her standing up for a few minutes, since we’ve been having more trouble lately transferring without her waking up. Then I gently set her in the crib and leaned over her, while she was still nursing away. Luckily I’m [ahem] endowed enough to do this! She was still asleep, so I unlatched her, and she DIDN’T MOVE A MUSCLE! YAY!!!!
She slept for two hours before waking up, but I suspect that’s because her diaper leaked (diapering issues are a whole other post…). When we finally changed her diaper, her pajamas, and her crib sheet, it only took 10 minutes to nurse her back to sleep and transfer her into the crib.
We’ll see how the rest of the night goes… right now it’s 11:30 and we’re going to bed!
Natalie sleeping in her bouncy chair. Photo taken on 3/13.
This is the only time she’s ever done this. When I went into the kitchen, she was laughing and “talking” to her fish. When I came back not more than two minutes later, she was out like a light. If only getting her to sleep were always that easy!