...my little one throws me a curve ball.  Two out of the last 3 nights he has slept for 7 hours straight, no crying it out necessary.  Now to some of you this may not seem like a big deal, but to my husband and I, this is the definition of bliss.  Seven whole hours.  I didn't need quite as much concealer today.  What did I do differently?  Basically, what everyone tells me not to do...  

Last week, out of pure and utter desperation, I bought "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems", by Dr. Richard Ferber.  A friend of mine, who had similar sleep issues with her children, recommended the book to me and told me that it took 3 nights to get her kids to sleep through the night.  B had been sleeping 2-3 hour stretches at night and I was paying the price during the day.  I was tired, groggy, agitated, foggy, and starting to get depressed.  Every time I would hear a friend tell me how their baby slept 10 hours a night (straight) I would quite literally, start to cry.  What is wrong with my baby?  Why won't he sleep?  How can he function all day without sleep?  Will it be like this forever?  What am I doing wrong???

Back to the book, I started reading it on the train and before bed.  I gathered some interesting information that I had never thought of before.  All babies have multiple waking during the night.  The problem comes in when the baby cannot self-soothe back to sleep.  Thus, B's issue.  He wakes up and gets so upset that he can't fall back to sleep.  The book recommends the let the baby fuss 5 minutes, go and check on them (without any skin contact) and then leave.  Wait 7 minutes and then do the same.  You just keep making the check-ins farther and farther between until your baby falls asleep on his/her own.  Also, you are not supposed to give them a pacifier (or at least not replace it if it falls out) and you are not supposed to nurse them before bed or during the night.  It isn't straight CIO, but a modified form of it.  How hard could that be, right?  We decided to give it a try.  Desperation speaks...loudly.

Oh man.  I know that being sleep deprived sucks, but listening to your baby cry and seeing the baby tears is awful.  I think I'd almost rather gouge my eyeballs out than listen to that awful cry.  They say that CIO is worse for the parents than it is for the child, but I don't know, B was really upset.  The first night that we tried it totally sucked and most likely backfired because he slept worse than his normal 2-3 hours at a time.  Seeing me check in on him made him even more upset.  He had started to develop a cold and was teething so I decided that night wasn't the night to start "Ferberizing".  By the time I picked him up snot and tears were streaming down his face.  Bad mommy.  :-(

Well the next night his cold got worse and his sleep got worse, too.  He cried and wouldn't let up.  Upon giving in and picking him up, I noticed that his top left tooth had cut through his red little gums.  Poor baby.  I felt like a jerk for making him cry for so long.  I am sure he was crying because he was in pain, not because he was being a difficult baby.  Bad mommy.  :-(

I decided to table the "Ferberizing" for the time being and try a few different things that I am more comfortable with for the time being.  First of all, I started completing his whole night time routine in his room, rather than my room.  After his bath, I now read to him in his room, nurse him in his room, and then rock him to sleep to the soothing noise of the  sound machine (I can just imagine the eye rolls).  If he gets up at night, I let him fuss for a few minutes (twice he has fallen back to sleep), then I go get him.  I offer him snuggles first, if that doesn't work then a pacifier, and if that doesn't work then a boob. I realized that I actually like this routine because I work all day and this is the most quality time that I get with him.  I want to soak it up.  He won't be a baby forever.  He won't let me snuggle him forever.  He won't be nursing forever.  You get where I am going with this?

The past few nights our routine has gone as described above and I can tell you that my stress level has been much lower.  Oh and two out of the three nights the little man has slept 7 hours straight.  Last night he didn't even sleep in our bed at all.  He has cut nursing at night down to one time or less.  Maybe this is a fluke that will last just a few days or maybe he still needs a little more of his mommy at night.  I don't think that is the worst thing in the world.  ;-)

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As I write this, I am going on about 5 1/2 months of less than 5 hours of a sleep at a time, so I apologize in advance for grammar/spelling errors and the fact that this post might be all over the place.  The lack of sleep is starting to affect my quality of life.  I forget things, I get agitated easily, I do stupid/careless things, I mess up at work and I am tired and hungry all the time.  The other day I scheduled a meeting (booked the conference room) and forgot to actually invite people to it.  I was sitting in the room by myself when I realized that I didn't invite anyone.  Face.  Palm.

My 5 1/2 month old son, who is the size of a 1 year old (for real), has decided that sleeping is not very high up on his list of his priorities.  He doesn't sleep at night and he doesn't do anything more than take small 20-30 minute cat naps throughout the day.  Lately, his pattern has been as follows:

6:30 PM - Bath
6:50 PM - Book
7:10 PM - Nurse, side lying
7:15 PM to 7:45 PM - Either lay with him in our bed until he falls asleep then transport to his crib or pick up put down in his crib.  He kicks and thrashes until he finally passes out.
8 PM to 11 PM - Sleep, B
9:30 PM - I go to sleep
11 PM - B wakes up to nurse, side lying
11:15 PM to 1 AM - Sleep, B (my husband puts him back in his crib)
1 AM - Attempt giving B pacifier in his crib, fails
1:15 AM - Nurse, side lying until we both fall asleep in our bed
1:20 AM to 3 AM - Sleep, B
3 AM - B wakes up, give him pacifier
4:40 AM - I wake up to get ready for work, B sleeps with Dad
5:40 AM - Wake B up to nurse before I leave

Things that I know I am doing wrong:

1.  Co-sleeping.  My husband and I swore up and down that we would not co-sleep.  That was until I found out about how real the effects of sleep deprivation are on a person.  We didn't want to co-sleep because we didn't want to be that couple that can't have sex because the kid is in bed with us.  I didn't really even take into consideration the risk of suffocation/SIDs, which I was reminded of the other day that I am a shitty parent for letting B sleep in our bed.  The only real reason that we started co-sleeping was because when I nurse the baby at night, in bed, we both fall asleep.  I am working/commuting daily from 6:30 AM until 4:30 PM.  I need some sleep.  The only way I get any at all is if I nurse while lying down.  I feel like we need to take a "vacation" from work to train him to sleep.

2.  Letting him lay with me to fall asleep.  After nursing him before bed, I lay with him on most occasions and hold down his arms because he bats them up and down like a wild animal.  Pinning them down does help him fall asleep faster, but I know the we need to let him learn to comfort himself.

The other night I put him down in his crib at bedtime, turned on his B.aby E.instein Fishy Music Box and attempted to let him put himself to sleep as I watched on the baby monitor.  Little B decided to flip onto his stomach and proceed to pivot so much that both of his legs became stuck in the crib slats.  By the time I came upstairs to rescue him, he was so flipped out that he was flailing and banging his head on his mattress while crying to the point that he could barely catch his breath.  So yeah, that was an epic failure.  I had to rock him for 20 minutes so that he could calm down enough to fall asleep again.

The past two nights he has been sick.  He developed a stuffy nose, watery eyes, sneezing and twice he has vomited (they told me I would know the difference from spitting up and vomiting and I didn't really believe them, but now I do).  He hasn't has a fever, though.  The poor babe has trouble eating or sucking on his pacifier because he can't breathe out of his nose.  We gave up on any type of sleep conditioning (training seems to be too controversial of a word these days) until he is better.  The past two nights, I have gotten a combined 7 hours of broken sleep.  Not good my friends, not good.

I have asked advice from several friends and family members and their responses for what I should do range from total CIO (cry it out) to attending to baby's every cry so that they keep trust in you (how they know that baby trust is associated with letting them cry to sleep is beyond me).  Usually people who are adamantly against CIO are very passionate about it, but the opposite is also true.  My mom is very passionately for CIO and claims that it worked for all of us and that none of us had serious attachment issues.  She is right.  We all slept through the night at early ages and were breastfed (I always get "give him cereal in his bottle and he'll sleep longer"...ummm no thanks).  We were also made to CIO at early ages.  My mom said it took 2-3 nights before we were able to "self-soothe".  She mentioned that it wasn't easy to listen to us cry and that she cried, too, but it was worth it.

Findings from a Temple University study that came out late last year, suggest that leaving babies to CIO is not harmful to them and helps them learn how to sleep on their own.  This NY Daily News article sums up the study.  Honestly, I am not sure how much actual scientific research they are using here to make that claim because, even after researching, I can't find the actual published study results.  I think that this method most definitely makes it better for the parents quality of life and many times a happy mommy/daddy equals a happy baby.  I am not sure that they went into disproving that it can cause psychological issues later in life, I think they just set to prove out that letting babies cry it out helps them to sleep better.

I belong to a FB group of mothers who miscarried babies that were due in April 2012.  Members of the group have left because their views on the topic caused major verbal arguments.  A few of them said it bothered them so much to hear about others abandoning their babies at night that it made them cry.  Drama, much?

An article in Psychology Today, Dangers of “Crying It Out”,  backs up the claim that children are generally damaged when being left to CIO. In summation, the article states that babies that are left to cry are more likely to have higher levels of stress and anxiety, lower self-confidence and less trust of others and the world around them.  The article even claims that the caregivers can become desensitized.  Read the comments after the article if you want to see fireworks.

I don't really feel passionate about any type of sleep conditioning.  You should parent your child as you see fit.  Everyone is going to have different views on exactly what should be done.  I don't know why people have to get so up in arms about how other people get their kids to sleep at night.  I personally don't want to give my baby cereal or formula to help them sleep at night.  If you want to, that's fine.  I hope it works out well for you.  I won't judge you, so you don't judge me, please!    

I don't think I will every be able to completely let B cry it out unless I get completely desperate.  I have been researching hybrid types of sleep conditioning, which I hope might be able to work for us.  Stay tuned, hopefully I can come up with the magic bullet.  Until then, I am going to continuing walking around in a sleepy, foggy haze.

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I have reached a whole new level of sleep deprivation and exhaustion that I never knew existed.  Saturday I went to the grocery store for the sole purpose of getting walnuts to make a pesto for our salmon.  I managed to spend almost $50 and ended up forgetting to get freaking walnuts.  How embarrassed was I when I had to tell my husband that we were not going to have any pesto with dinner because I forgot it?  Oye.   

Many "concerned" people tried to warn me as soon as they found out that I was pregnant, that I would not be sleeping for at least the next 18 years.  I wanted to slap the $#!t out of those people.  Didn't they know that I had tried for so long to have a baby?  Sleep was the last thing that I cared about.  Of course babies don't sleep when you first bring them home, but they grow out of the waking multiple times a night and every thing is hunky dory.  Ha.

My little B has turned into quite the night-time party animal...drinking (breast milk of course!), arms flailing, talking, and laughing up a storm at 11:30 PM, 1 AM, & 3 AM.  All we need is some Jay-Z and we would have a regular dance party USA.  Now I have to get up for work at 4:30 AM, so this schedule is just totally sucking for me.  Last night I fell asleep at 9:30 PM and then was up at 11:30 PM and then for most of the rest of the night.  It is getting impossible to track his sleep on Baby Connect anymore because there are so many starts and stops.  Today my diary entry was "B doesn't sleep".  Enough said. 

I thought we were making progress when I was able to get him to go to sleep last night at 7:30 PM.  We followed his regular routine:

• Gave him a bath at 6:30 PM.
• Gave baby massage with lavender lotion.
• Read 2 books (well 1 1/2, because he got fussy half way through "Sweet Dreams Roo").
• Swaddled with 1 arm out.
• Sound machine on w/sounds of the womb.
• Laid him in his crib awake, but tired at 7:20 PM w/ pacifier.
• Sat in glider and watched him fidget and finally fall asleep at 7:30 PM.
• Woke up 45 min later and needed his arm pinned down for 1 minute before falling asleep until 11:30 PM.

I think I know what a few of the issues are here, I am just not sure how to correct them all...

1.  I think that part of the problem right now is the fact that once B wakes up, I bring him into our bed to feed him and 99% of the time I fall asleep doing it and wake up 2 hours later when he fusses.  I need to break out of this habit and put him back in his bed when he is done eating.  I think he just smells me and thinks it is time to eat again.  I need to get my lazy ass out of bed and walk the 10 feet to his bedroom to put him down in his crib. 

2.  He has developed the bad habit of getting distracted when eating during the day.  He now only eats for 2-4 minutes on a side during the day when I breast feed him.  He pulls off and looks at me and smiles.  OMG.  I love that smile, but I want to the kid to get most of his calories during the day so that I can sleep a little more at night.  He is over 16 lbs.  He should be able to go at least 5 hours in between feedings!

3.  He has serious gas at night.  My diet change has done nothing to help this.  I am counting down the days until we see the gastroenterologist. 

4.  He isn't really napping well, or should I say he isn't really napping at all.  He takes a 45 min- 1.5 hr nap in the morning and then that is pretty much it for the entire day.  He will nap on a walk or in the car, but he doesn't like to go to sleep in the afternoon because he is too busy doing things that almost 4 month old babies like to do (like trying to roll over and babbling up a storm).

Every morning I wake up and pray that tonight might be the night where I get 5 hours a uninterrupted sleep.  All I want is just 5 hours!!!  When I wake up sleep deprived and groggy I try to remind myself that this is just a phase, that he will grow out of.  When I see his smiling face for our 5:40AM scheduled feeding before work, it is tough to be too upset because he is just so freaking adorable.  Tomorrow I am working from home due to a scheduled GYN appointment for me and my "painful intercourse" issue (I'll have an exciting update about that tomorrow...haha), so I can "sleep" a little later.

Until I get my 5 hours of sleep, you'll find me sleeping under my desk...ZzzzZzzzZzzz.    

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Wow 2 days in a row.  I am impressed with myself.  ;-)

I am not sure if it is because we completely changed up B's scheduled or what, but this week has been just as bad for sleeping as it was when he was 2 weeks old.  He went from sleeping 5-6 solid hours to 1.5-2 hours.  Mommy is tired.  Mommy is grouchy.  Mommy is sleepy.

I am graciously soliciting advice here from other mommies out there who have gone through the same thing.  I started loosely implementing the E.A.S.Y. (Eat, Activity, Sleep, Your time) baby schedule for B about 2 months back and it seemed to be working. Here is what our typical schedule looked like, with regards to sleep, before I went back to work.  I was BF on demand so I am not putting the full feeding schedule in here.  He sleeps in a co-sleeper in our room right now.

7 AM- wake for the day
9 AM- nap
12 PM- nap
3 PM- nap
5 PM- cat-nap
6:30 PM- bath, massage w/ lotion, book, swaddle, BF, sing
7:30 PM- bed
10:30 PM- dream feed
3:30/4 AM- B wakes on his own to eat

Now that I am back to work and have to wake at the ungodly hour of 4:45 AM for the day, things are a little different.  He takes one good nap in the morning and then that is it.  Only cat-naps for the rest of the day and not on any schedule.  My poor sister.  The items in parenthesis are the events that I have no control over.

5:40 AM- wake B to BF
6:10 AM- I leave for work
7 AM- nap
8:30/9 AM- 5 oz bottle pumped milk, I pump between 6-8 oz @ work
12 PM- 5oz bottle pumped milk, I pump 5-6 oz @ work
3 PM- 5oz bottle pumped milk, I pump 4-5 oz @ work
5 PM- I get home from work
5:30/6 PM- BF
6:30 PM- bath, massage w/ lotion, book, swaddle, BF, sing
7:30 PM- put B down
8 PM- B wakes up crying, soothe and put back in bed w/ pacifier
8:15 PM- wakes up crying, soothe and put back in bed w/ pacifier
8:30 PM- wakes up crying, soothe and put back in bed w/ pacifier
8:45 PM- B is finally asleep
10/10:30 PM- dream feed or pump (last night was the first night I skipped the dream feed and pumped because it doesn't seem to be working anymore)
(12:30 AM- B wakes crying, BF lying down, we both fall asleep)
1:30 AM- I wake up, put B back in his bed
3 AM- B wakes crying, BF lying down, we both fall asleep, again
4:30/4:45 AM-  wake up, put B back in his bed, I get ready for work

I think the thing that I am struggling most with right now is the getting B to sleep.  If I could get him down at 7:30 PM for the night then I would have some time to do things like make dinner, pack my lunch, wash bottles/pump parts, do laundry, and iron my clothes for the next day so that I could go to bed at a reasonable hour.

I bought a Graco sound machine, which I really like, but don't think it helps much.  I also have the Tranquil Turtle, which I also like, but doesn't really help either.  Our room has good ventilation.  We have a ceiling fan, air purifier and central AC.  We use the Miracle Blanket, which he has started to bust out of.  We have tried weaning him from a swaddle at night, but he won't sleep at all.  I know we need to start weaning again though because I have a feeling he will be rolling over soon. 

One other wild card is the fact that he also has suspected mild acid reflux and a suspected MSPI (milk/soy protein intolerance).  He has never been tested and formally diagnosed.  He is on baby Zantac twice a day plus I am dairy and soy free (the joy).  He spits up a lot, but not usually at night.  I am not sure if this is another reason why he has trouble?

Does anyone have good advice on how to get a baby to sleep easier or is this just a phase that he will grow out of?  It isn't even the night waking that is the biggest issue, it is the struggle with getting him to sleep.  At first I was thinking growth spurt, but now that this has gone on for over a week, I am thinking not so much.

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I can't believe that little B is already 20 days old.  It seems like just yesterday we were watching him wiggle around on the ultrasound screen.  Time really does fly.  I think that sleep deprivation makes things go even faster, if that is possible.  The days and nights are all blurred into one long never ending  day.  I LOVE the weekends because I have my husband home to help me.

Even though I am only 20 days in, I have already learned a lot.  I know every baby is different, but I'll outline a few of the main things that I have learned already.  It might help some of the new mommies or soon-to-be mommies.  Having different perspectives is always helpful!  These are my experiences and may not be what you will experience so please keep that in mind!

1.  Nothing can prepare you for the lack of sleep that you will experience.  All of those silly people who told me to "rest up" and "bank my sleep" seriously had no clue what they were talking about.  You can't stockpile sleep and if you could, being huge and pregnant doesn't lend well to sleeping anyways.  Once the baby is born, you can say goodbye to more than 3 hour stretches of sleep at a time, at least for the first few weeks.  Napping during the day doesn't really help, in my experience.  I wake up groggy and confused.  During B's first few days, I had to wake him up to feed him so he could regain back to his birth weight.  Once I stopped setting my alarm every 2 1/2 hours, he started waking me up every 2 hours on his own, go figure.  It is actually quite amazing that one can function with 3 total hours of broken sleep a night.

2.  Hormones are a BITCH.  I can go from so happy and grateful to angry and upset in 10 seconds.  I wake up at night drenched in sweat.  I have a very short fuse.  My hair is falling out, but not as bad as it did after my first miscarriage.  My beautiful pregnancy skin (yes, this was one area where I was lucky) has given way to a greasy broken out mess.  I look at B and I cry sometimes because he is so perfect and I feel like I don't deserve him.  I feel like I am not nearly as good of a mother as my mother was.  I never heard her complain about getting up in the middle of the night with any of my brothers or sisters.  I never heard to cry over sleep deprivation and when a baby would not stop crying.  My mother was a saint.  God bless her.

3.  Nursing is hard and good nursing friendly clothing is hard to come by, apparently.  During the first few days of nursing, when my milk came in, I was in a tremendous amount of pain.  My boobs felt like painful rocks.  I even ran a slight temperature.  I called my mom crying and she told me it was all normal and that it would pass in a day or two.  She was right.  Then came the sore nipples and scabs.  Yes, sounds gross, but this is what happened to me.  My nipples felt like they were going to fall off so I alternated feedings with the nipple shield.  Yes, it was a pain in the ass to clean and make it stay on, but it helped when I felt like throwing in the towel.  The scabs caused some clogged ducts, which felt like huge painful lumps.  Massaging and hovering over the baby to feed for a few sessions helped with this.  Rock hard boobs, calloused nipples, and clogged ducts gave way to a crazy milk supply.  I was worried about not producing enough when, in fact, I have a great supply.  I even have an overactive letdown which sometimes causes little B to choke because the milk comes spraying out!  This brings me to nursing clothes.  I bought a few nursing tanks at T.arget that I love and then a few more online.  Regular shirts are just useless right now, even if you have a good nursing bra (I recommend the B.ravado seamless bra).  I ordered a few more from T.arget the other day and they cancelled my order saying they are no longer in stock even though when I look online it says that have them.  I would recommend nursing tanks for wearing to sleep and around the house.  Buy a bunch because you'll find that you need to change 2-3 times a day for various reasons (baby spit, milk dripping, explosive poops, etc.).

4.  C-section recovery sucks.  I still am angry and feel cheated.  Please don't judge me.  I know I should just be happy I have my baby, but every time I think about my awful birth experience, I cry.  My husband keeps telling me to get over it and he is right.  I need to move on.  I think I might need to go back to see my therapist.  Similarly to how I was when I was having trouble staying pregnant, I am jealous of other people's seemingly perfect birth experiences and easy recoveries.  I know that this probably is not normal.  Physically, my incision is healing well, but all of my past rub right at that spot.  I haven't found any that are comfortable.  I also still look pregnant.  This is the most bothersome to me.  I have lost 35 lbs, but yet I still have this swollen belly that is covered in stretch marks.  I have no idea if this is normal and if it will go away.  I can't lift more than 15 lbs. so that really restricts what I can do and where I can go.  I just want to feel normal, look normal, and enjoy my baby without all of the restrictions.

5.  You'll never love anything as much as you love your baby.  This one is so very true.  My friends did warn me about this and I wasn't sure I believed them, but now I know that they were right.  No matter how much they fuss or cry or spit up or pee/poop all over you the love that you feel for them is so unconditional and immense.  I look at him and I cry because I love him so much.  It is so amazing to me how much you can love such a tiny little human so much.  He really makes everything else that sucks so bad, worth it.  I would go through all this crap 100 times over if I had to do it to get him.                  

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