Friday, January 1, 2010

To Sleep, perchance...

My boy has always been a good sleeper. (I note that "always" refers to his mere five months of life.) Except for the last week. The last looonnngg seven days. He's teething. He's congested. And, he can flip from his back to his front and back again, so the pediatrician said it isn't safe to swaddle him anymore. No swaddle = No sleep. No sleep = pyschopath mom. I'm stymied on this one.

night one with no swaddle -- Adam slept on his side for 4 hours then woke up screaming. He slept in fits of 2 hours the rest of the night.

night two with no swaddle -- The nanosecond I put his sound asleep body in the crib, he immediately flipped to his belly and started crying. After three pick ups and soothings, he went to sleep and repeated the pattern from night one.

night three -- ditto. mom cries. yells at dad. surely it's his fault.

And so on.

So I ask, what the hell? How can a baby who's used to sleeping 8+ hours a night revert to a newborn?

5 comments:

Birdee said...

Wow! My LO has only slept 8 hours once or twice, a couple times at 6 hours, most often at 5.

I know it's hard, they can spoil us with good sleep (5 hours in my case) then revert back to three3 (my LO has been doing the same thing) which makes if feel even harder than if they never stopped sleeping three hours a night.
Hope it gets better for us soon.

Paula Keller said...

I feel kind of guilty for laughing, because surely I will be sleep deprived in a few months!

This coming from the person who knows absolutely nothing about babies, except that they are cute... but 8 hours at 5 months, isn't that like...phenomenal?

I hope he'll adjust soon.

Good to hear from ya. Happy New Year!

Shinejil said...

It's called a sleep regression. Seriously... it's a good sign, related to acquiring all sorts of good developmental skills. Go, kid, go!

Check this out: http://www.askmoxie.org/2007/10/4-month-olds.html

This too will pass, Melanie! Until the 9-mo regression.

My solution: take the kid to bed and nurse him through the night, in side-lying position. Of course, this is totally shit advice if you're not bfeeding, you or your kid hate co-sleeping, or this doesn't work for some other reason. My guy sleeps pretty badly by comparison to yours, and this has been the only solution to keep me from being a raging bitch. But as with everything sleep related, YMMV.

Rebeccah said...

Ohboy ... as someone whose one-year-old has *never* slept through the night, I hear you on the sleep deprivation thing. And, because our little guy never would tolerate being swaddled from day one and still has a very complicated relationship with sleep, I have absolutely no advice except to suggest reading all the books, trying what resonates with you and tossing what doesn't, and most of all, do your best to take good care of yourself.

Shinejil's probably right about sleep regression, and it sucks -- teething sucks too -- but being a sleep-deprived psychopath parent sucks worse (at least that's my point of view these days ...) Wishing you peaceful nights soon!

Anonymous said...

Poor mama! I hope you get to sneak in a nap.

When we had to break C from the swaddle, I swaddled her with her arms out so that she still felt like something was familiar. It helped...some. Now she sleep with sleep sacks. I FINALLY figured out that she was cold and that was interfering with her sleep.

Hopefully your little one feels better soon!