A lot of you have asked recently how Henry’s been sleeping. It’s funny just how much time I spend thinking about sleep. . .probably inversely proportional to how much sleep I’m getting.
I’ve been attending some mother-baby groups in Madison, one at Happy Bambino on the east side, and one at the Madison Birthing Center in Middleton. Sleep was the topic of discussion at both baby groups in the last week, and it was extremely reassuring to hear that vast majority of moms have babies that aren’t napping well during the day, aren’t sleeping well at night, or some combination of the two. Interestingly enough, a good 75-80% of the moms are co-sleeping with their babies. Of the small portion of us who aren’t co-sleeping, I was the only mom that didn’t have her baby in the bedroom with her (in a crib or bassinet or whatever). This is a pretty accurate insight into modern parenting trends, I think–or at least modern parenting trends here in Madison.
At any rate, Henry’s usual night sleep patterns involve a 3-5 hour stretch starting around 7:30pm. He’ll get up to nurse , go back to sleep for another 2 hrs, get up to nurse again, and then pretty much be up and down (nursing on and off) for the rest of the night. Some nights, if he sleeps a good 4 or 5 hours for the first chunk, I’m feeling pretty good the next day. Other nights, if he’s up every 1-2 hours, I’m functional, but not particularly “with it.”
During the day, you’d think he’d make up for any night sleep deficits, but it apparently doesn’t work that way. He will usually take three brief (30 min) naps –one in the morning, one around noon, and one in the late afternoon. The days when he would take hour+ naps seem to be long gone, and it’s a little distressing because he clearly needs the sleep. .. by the end of the day he seems pretty exhausted and cranky.
We haven’t totally given up the idea of “sleep training” at some point, but a few things are holding me back. My pediatrician says he’s still too young at this point for any sort of “cry it out” sleep training, which makes sense to me. Also, Henry’s got the sort of temperment that doesn’t seem like it will work well with a “cry it out” method–by that I mean when he cries, he can work himself up into hysteria, and not be able to settle down. I think other kids can cry themselves to a calmer place, but my guess is that sleep-training Henry would involve hours of screaming, vomiting, etc ., and I really don’t feel great about that.
So what am I planning to do? Well, we stick with what works for right now–Henry still likes to be swaddled (at least, it seems to help settle him), he likes to be walked or bounced to sleep, preferrably to loud music. Daddy has made a few great mix CDs that work great for this. We use white noise in his room when he sleeps. And he sleeps in his swing (not running). Every day we try him in his crib, and every day he wakes up screaming in it, so I’d say he’s not ready for it yet. Something about the shape of the swing, which is an infant reclining cradle style, seems to work better for him than the crib.
And the thing that has worked the best has been simply adjusting my expectations, and taking the long view. I found that I was dreading night time a lot, stressing about whether it would be a good night or a bad night, and often unable to fall asleep myself because I was just listening for him to wake up anyway. What I try to focus on now is that this is a relatively short period in our lives, and soon enough he’ll be sleeping longer and longer, and someday he may even sleep through the night. And that someday, I will even miss these nighttime feedings, when it’s just my little baby and I curled up together, safe and warm and happy.
