I have to keep reminding myself that I did this. I’m the one to blame for any sleep issues we may be having. And honestly, the issues aren’t that bad, as long as I’m okay with not sleeping very much. The only problem is that I am the sort that doesn’t do so well when I don’t get plenty of sleep. If I’m woken up in the night, I don’t function well. If I’m exhausted during the day, I’m more liable to stress out and scream at the puppy or something. (Not that I’ve done that even once in the past day or so.)
When Liam was new, he slept on me pretty much all the time. Except at night. His naps during the day were virtually all on the Boppy on my lap. I remember how pleased I was when I discovered he would nap in our bed upstairs by himself. At night, for the first couple months, he slept in our Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper. Then, we moved him into our bed with us. Why? I’m not entirely sure, but I’m fairly certain the motive was “more sleep for us”. And that too worked pretty well. We decided to keep him with us through the winter because we tend to keep our house rather cold at night and we didn’t want him to get chilled. Plus, we sorta like the little fella and cutting the apron strings has proven to be a little more difficult than I would have expected.
This is why at 8 months of age, four months older than his brother was, he’s still sleeping in our bed at night and during naps. The problem now is that he isn’t familiar with his crib and doesn’t care for it in the slightest. Also? He’s gotten a little used to being held during the night, mostly by Kile (since I’m the sort that likes to sleep without anyone touching me). That’s not so good for getting used to a crib either. Last night, I decided to try something. I put him in the crib and then settled in in the full size bed we have in the nursery. And he did okay. He fell asleep after a little while and stayed asleep for about an hour and a half. Then he woke up and was pretty distressed that he was in the evil, evil crib. So I brought him in the bed with me for the rest of the night. My hope is to try this every night until he’s sleeping the entire night in the crib. I don’t know how long that’ll take, since when I brought him in bed with me last night and snuggled him to me I literally felt him relax and settle in. He very obviously wanted to be held. So this could take a while.
*sigh* Pray for me.
Meanwhile, he’s taking a nap right now. In our bed. I know, but I don’t know if I want to mess with that yet. I haven’t the foggiest idea how to get him moved over to the crib for naps. I figure let’s take care of nighttime first before we worry about that.
This is me. I'm a thirtysomething stay at home mom to three kids. For years I was a stay at home mom to one kid and trying very hard to have more. It took a LONG time (ie: 6 1/2 years), but finally Liam arrived and charmed us with his blue eyes and ginormous, round head. Then we got a shock: I was pregnant again and this time it was a GIRL. Our hearts and home are full at last and now that we're done having babies, we get to relax (snort) and watch them grow (not too fast now, you hear?). Thanks for coming by, feel free to dip into my archives, read my About and History pages (just don't do Jackson's Story without tissues!) and make yourself at home.
