Exciting Sleep Developments

Well, it seems like my earlier worries about getting Michael to sleep are becoming almost non-existent at the point...thank goodness!

First and foremost, Michael is sleeping like a champ at night. Of course, he still wakes up once in the middle of the night to eat, and then pretty early in the morning, he is getting more and more large "chunks" of hours at night in which he is sleeping straight through.

Which means night time is no longer so stressful for me. I used to dread the night because I didn't know what it would consist of, what with Michael wanting to sleep on someone and everything. There was no routine, no pattern, no nothing...just crossing our fingers our little boy (and us) got some much-needed rest.

Since we've been swaddling him, Michael has been sleeping great, but of course that posed its own set of issues with him breaking his swaddle and waking himself up. Until....the Miracle Blanket!!

I love this blanket...and especially now that Michael is getting bigger and stronger so even his very deluxe Swaddle Blanket isn't much good to us in terms of keeping his limbs settled down.

But this Miracle Blanket, aka "Baby StraightJacket" around our home, is great in that it uses his weight to keep his arms down by his side.

Don't get me wrong, our little Houdini can still bust loose, but it is far less frequent and it takes much more effort on his part.

Here are a few exciting sleep developments for our boy!

* Michael has a bedtime of between 8:30 and 9pm. This is much better than his first few days where his "bedtime" was 3 am. Boy, I remember those days in the hospital, poor Michael Sr was the only one who could really get up and get him, Michael Jr seemed to need to eat non-stop, and two rookie parents are wondering, "What did we get ourselves into?"

* Michael has, on several occasions now, put himself to sleep!!! This is still not a regular occurence, but more than once or twice, we have been a tired-yet-awake little Michael all bundled in his crib, only to check in after a few minutes to find him asleep!! Now, more times than not, putting an awake Michael to bed will still normally lead to a period of crying, but not every time, so we are working towards that!

* Michael has spent a good deal of time asleep this past week without being swaddled!! I think his little reflex is settling down. Now, I can't just put him down awake without the swaddle, but if he is nursing and falls into a pretty deep sleep, I can put him down without swaddling him, and he'll go for quite some time without waking himself up. It's a good start towards our goal, which we can't really control, we just have to wait it out, and that is being able to have him sleep without the Swaddle.

* I've discovered the "crying it out method" has a few benefits, but it still too early for us to implement it very aggressively. The sleeping book I mentioned says that after six weeks you can try it, but until 3 months, it may not work...so try it for 10 or 15 minutes. What this means is that all his needs are taken care of, we know he is tired because he has given us sleepy cues, and the thing he needs most at the moment is sleep. Sometimes, though, he is either too excited about being around people to want to sleep, or he just isn't in the right frame of mind to fall asleep. If we put him in the crib after doing our little "sleep-time" routine of rocking and singing, and he isn't asleep, we leave the room and let him either settle himself to sleep (the goal!) or he'll start crying begging for us to come and get him because he is lonely and wants to be with us.

The times he hasn't settled himself to sleep, and he has cried, we have only once, after 5 minutes, successfully had him "cry himself to sleep" (sad, I know, but better for him than being overtired). However, the other times where we let him cry for about 10 minutes (we haven't done more of that) all it takes is for us to pick him up to comfort him, and as soon as we pick him up, he falls asleep, and then we can immediately lay himself down again for a good rest.

The crying helps to tire him, and the comfort of being picked up helps relax him enough to go back down. It's really hard to do, especially walking in and seeing tears in his eyes and down his cheeks, but this usually just happens once a day, and as a parent, it is better for him to sleep than for us to feel a little sadness at seeing our boy cry a little. With how much love and attention this guy gets the rest of the day, if he grows up with some abandonment complex or trust issues because of this 10 minutes...well, then, that would have been destined to happen anyways. I'm starting to not feel too bad about it, especially when he wakes up from his nap all smiley and cheerful...a situation I know I wouldn't have gotten if he got no nap at all because I was too anxious to hear him crying.

(Do I sound like I'm justifying myself too much? Hmm...you are perceptive)

* Michael has fallen asleep and stayed asleep in his bouncy chair! Someone bought me a bouncy chair for Michael when I'm at work. Watching the Campbells with their bouncy chair, I often envied them for them being able to sleep so well in it while Kathy gets work done. Well, even though it hasn't happened too often, on a few occasions, I have gotten Michael to sleep in his bouncy chair while I bustle around the office getting work done. It's great!! Another bonus to it is that it has dangling things that he can bat at when he's awake, and so he's pretty content in it for a little while then too! However, he's so cute to watch while he is awake and playing with the dangly things, I don't get the work done I need to! Oh well, I still think I chose the better part!

So...tomorrow we are going on seven weeks and the sleep concerns are definitely, definitely ironing themselves out. I'm so grateful! There have been a few "hiccups" during the nights when he normally sleeps so well...sometimes he wakes up in between feedings for an unknown reason...though it seems to be that he just wants some attention because as soon as we touch him and talk to him, he goes back to sleep...and of course, yesterday on my birthday he was up pretty much every hour, but I think it is because he wanted me to enjoy as much of my birthday awake as possible (how thoughtful!). It was a teensy-bit frustrating because, after all, it was my birthday, and doesn't he know that I deserve to sleep in on my birthday, not to be bothered with such trifle things as providing him nourishment and sustenance? What insensitivity!

Haha. Just kidding. But seriously, I had to remind myself of that when it was during the wee hours of the night, that he doesn't understand the concept of giving mommy some slack on her birthday....or maybe he does....I do have to say, there were several occasions during those early morning wakings that I was kind of grumbling at first and then he flashed a BIG smile and a loud "coo!" and I immediately changed my tune to: "Thank you for waking me up for that!" Maybe he just wanted to give me that little birthday present early....

In closing, I am going to spend the last few minutes musing over the fact that Michael never, ever sleeps until 9 am (and still going!). However, because I have a meeting at the Diocese today, he has elected to sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep, and with all this talk about making sure my boy is well-rested, I haven't the heart to wake him up!!

And of course, in my angst to get to my meeting, I got all gussied up and dressed, and couldn't possibly just go back to bed while he is sleeping. This kid, it's almost like he knows when to tease!

So the Bishop will have to wait (well, he's not going to wait on my anways, I'm just one of 100+ people...the show will go on)...but in the mean time, sweet dreams, Michael!