Sleep Associations - Part Two

I promise not to always give you a play by play of my child's sleeping habits, but I wanted to follow up my previous sleeping blog with an update -

This morning after falling asleep finally at 8 a.m., Eli slept for 2 hours. When he woke up, I fed him and we went for a long walk (and I persisted at not letting him fall asleep in the stroller, eventually carrying him for the last little bit so he wouldn't doze off... not an easy task with this 16-pounder), and at the advice of Dr. Andy, gave Eli a "snack" 30 minutes before it was time for his next nap. Then at 12:15, I started the process of changing his diaper, reading a few stories, singing a song, and quietly telling him it was time for his nap and putting him in the crib.

As soon as he was in the crib, Eli's eyes welled up with tears and went full blast into the "You are hurting my feelings!" cry. I left the room for about 10 minutes, went back in, and he was crying really hard. I pulled him out, put him on his tummy on the rug next to the crib, and got down on my tummy next to him. No toys, no fun, just something to wear him out a little more! Eventually he got sick of our boring tummy time and I held him, rocked him, read another book, sang another song, put him back down. More tears!

I left him for 10 more minutes, then went back in to calm him back down, and more tears. Finally on the last time that I went in, I remembered someone had given us one of those satiny/soft small square blankets, so I gave that to him, and he cuddled with it, shoved part of it in his mouth, and I put him back down in his crib. He fussed off and on for about 15 more minutes, but finally fell asleep. VICTORY!!!

I think that was the first time that he fell asleep in his crib, without being nursed to sleep first. It took an hour from the time I started, but I'm hoping tomorrow's efforts won't take AS long...??? Oh the joy of fixing my mistakes!

Sleep Associations - HELP!

I an official victim of letting my baby nurse to sleep. I guess I should take more responsibility rather than call myself a victim, but I really feel like it just snuck up on me! And now Eli is 4 months+ and having a really tough time getting on a better sleep/wake schedule... his pediatrician (Dr. Andy) says Eli should just eat when he wakes up, then play for two hours, then sleep for one hour, and start the cycle all over again (this is for daytime).

However, I tried this yesterday afternoon, and Eli screamed for two hours (I went in many times trying to calm him down without nursing, and that didn't help anything). Eventually, I ruined those two hours of working with him to fall asleep and finally fed him (by then he genuinely seemed hungry...?) and he slept for an hour and a half. Yes, I cheated!! And then was mad at myself for doing that. He was so tired still that he went to sleep at 6 p.m. and slept until 5 a.m. today...

Which brings me to today's morning nap struggle. Usually if Eli wakes up between 5-5:30 a.m., he will eat and go right back to sleep. It's like his one remaining feeding in the night. And then he'll sleep until 7 or 7:30 a.m. and the day will begin. However, today he woke at 5 a.m. and was very hungry. I expected him to fall back asleep, so I put him back in his crib, but he made noises for about 30 minutes, and those noises escalated into fussiness and I eventually picked him up.

At 7 a.m., I decided it was time for his first nap since he had now been awake for two hours. I changed his diaper, read some books, sang a song, and put him in his crib. He cried after about 2 seconds of being in there. I let him cry for five minutes, but it was quickly escalating into what it sounded like yesterday afternoon when he was beyond reason and not falling asleep. I went in, turned on his mobile, patted him on the tummy and talked to him, then went out of the room again. Still no luck. I waited 10 minutes this time, and he was crying so hard. An hour went by, with me going in periodically, trying to calm him down, etc. His poor eyes were so red and his face was wet from all of his tears. Not fun.

By 8 a.m., I picked him up (because now it had been 3 hours since he ate last), fed him (while talking to him the entire time to keep him awake, but he was fading fast), and kept talking to him while I put him in his crib so he would at least be awake for a minute. He went right to sleep. Day 2 of failing to implement the correct sleep/wake cycle.

So here are my questions... was he just screaming because he was starving (after not eating all night long and just eating at 5 a.m.?)? Was I a pushover for eventually feeding him? Should I feel guilty for letting him cry SO hard? And how do you change a baby's eating patterns so they only eat when they wake up? I'm calling Dr. Andy in a little while for some doctorly advice but there are lots of you out there who have already trained your kids to sleep the right way... any tips??

Cute little guy!

I took this picture this morning when Eli was giggling at all of my goofy antics :)

Already Getting into Trouble :)

Sometimes Eli looks like he's up to something...

Yesterday I put him on the bed and turned around to get some things. I am fighting a bad sinus infection, so there was a kleenex box on my bed. Silly me didn't think about the fact that Eli might reach over...

...and try to stuff a huge handful of tissues in his mouth!! (My camera was on the desk next to the bed so I had to capture this mess!) He loves picking things up and shoving them in his mouth.

Sometimes when I'm holding Eli, he likes to grab my hair on either side of my face and then pull me in close so he can drool all over my face... lovely! (He thinks it's great to try to gnaw on my chin, which sounds gross but for some reason I think it's funny too.)