Sleeping

Feeding and sleeping, feeding and sleeping. thats all he did for the first few weeks. Now its getting a little more complicated. He's almost 4 months old, and he's awake, alert, looking around, listening to sounds, and reaching out and grabbing things.

I am co-sleeping. I chose to do so out of convenience and out of not seeing any reason to put him in a crib (a cage-like structure separate from momma). I'm a lazy mother, and especially during the beginning, suckling and sleeping throughout the night was no problem.

I'm waking up tired now, though, and am beginning to want a full nights sleep, because I'm not taking naps like I promised myself I would. I'm ready for him to sleep through the night. What do I have to do for that?

My personal to-do list is as follows:

1. establish a relationship with a blankie/lovie. For sleep cues, comfort, and "taking a piece of me" instead of all of me and my breast.
2. prolong time between feedings in increased 15 minute timespans. ideally he will be feeding 5 times a day at 4hr intervals (from the start of each feeding.)
3. Get him to take two naps a day (until he's 12-18 months at which point it will become only one long nap a day). This doesn't include a night-sleep finishing nap after a morning feeding. (no junk naps in the carrier. real, good naps.)
4. He'll only be up for 12 hour spans, having a full day from 8 to 8 or something like that.

After establishing this foundation of feeding and lying down for naps in a consistent atmosphere with blankie, low light, and lying down, i'll remove the association of feeding/sleeping. A sleep-consultant said "the day should be e.a.s.y. Eat, Awake, Sleep, You-time. (The you-time was obviously just added for acronym convenience :) eating and sleeping should only be associated for the night rest, where the evening feed precedes sleep-time.

Tomorrow i will keep a log of his sleepy-cues (red eyes/eyebrows, rubbing, yawning, tired cooing sounds...) and write down when he woke, and how many hours before the first sleepy cues. i am to put him in a nap-atmosphere before the sleepy cues arise so he can naturally fall asleep without the stress-hormone Cortisol arising, at which point rocking/driving/nursing/walking becomes necessary, and the quality of sleep is compromised.

I'll begin implementation with getting good naps during the day. Sleep begets sleep, so if he's getting good, consistent naps, he'll rest well at night as well.


Most importantly, however, I am not going to push myself and him to do anything we are not ready for. After hearing a bunch of information, i thought, "great, we're gonna put you down for a nap because I know you're tired." I put him down and he began to cry. The sleep-training advice suggested leaving him and checking in with him consistently at 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and then 10-10-10-10 minute intervals, so he knows you're consistently coming back, but also not interrupting his natural desire to want to be napping. This, i think, is called 'extinction.' and is actually sort of extreme, but I jumped right in without thinking. I paced outside the room thinking "i can't handle this." I stared at the clock. Not even a minute passed, and I went inside. I didn't pick him up immediately, but i tried singing to him, bouncing his bouncer... It escalated. I kept trying. He coughed and out of stress, vomited. Choking, i picked him up putting his head below his feet so he can vomit cleanly. I cried with him, feeling like an asshole. When he was better and on my chest, I apologized to him, and he pulsed "Am i too much for you!?!? I thought i was okay!" and i again, feeling like an asshole, pulsed to him, "Of course not!! I'm so sorry... You can feed and sleep for now and we'll switch over more gently."

Sometimes i can be a real tough-love momma, but he reminds me to be gentle.

When I picked up the blanket he was sleeping with, i realized the first piece of advice to implement would be to establish a relationship with a blanket... Not jump into sleep-training. Duh.

Oh well, he's now sleeping right beside me, his arms touching my arm as i type this out.

A website on attachment parenting says about sleep to not expect to get a full nights rest, to be there for him whenever he asks, and to understand that this stage of infancy is temporary and they will grow up to be independent adults soon enough... "unreasonable expectation" and "life is different now. Put the comfort of your baby before your own." But my new desire for a full nights sleep has come from my understanding that WHICHEVER way i do it, whatever advice i take, he will grow up to be an independent, well-adjusted adult (so long as i don't mess it up by coddling him too much.)

Anyway, if you are researching ways to get your child to sleep through the night and stumbled upon this blog, the above pointers may help. If your baby is between 12 and 15 pounds, 12 weeks adjusted, they are absolutely capable of sleeping through the night if you do the things that allow them to do so.

Other things to note are these:

When you are rocking/driving/nursing your baby to sleep, you are only relaxing the cortisol and as soon as you stop, the baby will most likely be up again, still upset and awake. Catch the baby before she shows signs of tiredness and put her in an established sleep environment (spa-settings, 80% to pitch darkness, warmish temperature, soothing sounds, blankie friend.)

Also to note is that babies have a 3 day habit memory... so if you think you've established a habit or routine, it only takes 3 days to get used to a different routine or habit.

Sleeping on-the-go is referred to by a sleep-researcher as 'junk sleep' and is not regenerative sleep. Sleep begets sleep. Wakefulness begets wakefulness. If your baby misses naptime during the day, you can subtract that time from the amount of time he'll be sleeping at night.

How can you know if he's fed enough? Babies can wait 4 hours between feedings. 5 meals during the day, with solid foods being given after milk earlier in the day.

Co-sleeping might make sleeping through the night more difficult because they can smell it and see it, but i'm going to give it a try because i'm not about to buy a crib because i'm still in the process of moving around and traveling a bit.

Well, thats my first post. I've been wanting to start a blog on this experience. Lets see what i am inspired to write about next.