I used to feel pretty confident about everything that we were doing as parents but now I'm beginning to feel like we are doing everything wrong when it comes to sleep. Shortly after he turned three months old, we transitioned Nate from the Pack N Play in our bedroom to the crib in his room. It was a pretty smooth transition and he began to stretch out his sleep at night until he was sleeping 12 hours right around his four month birthday (right when I went back to work, which I greatly appreciated!). He continued to be a champion sleeper and even let me put him down awake several times, to drift off to sleep on his own. We did nothing special to make any of this happen; Nate did it on his own. I figured babies are on their own timetable and will do things when they are ready.
Then he got sick. And then he got croup. And then he started teething. Up until about a week and a half ago, the poor kid wasn't feeling well for one reason or another for all but about seven days out of the last six weeks. He was waking up like a newborn much of this time and because his room is not so close and up some steep stairs, we would often bring him into bed with us in the middle of the night. (Dan and I were also sick, me twice and Dan once, during this time period, which also contributed to our desire to make things as easy as possible.)
Now we are working on getting him to sleep all night in his crib and hoping for longer sleep stretches. Two of the last three nights he's slept five hours in his crib, I fed him, put him back down, he woke after about 30 min, Dan rocked him and put him back down, then he slept another five hours. After eating the second time he continued to wake up every 30 minutes or less. The first of the two nights we brought him into bed but last night Dan stayed upstairs with him and they slept on the bed up there together. We figured having him in his own room was better than bringing him into ours if he wasn't going to get good rest in his crib.
Once we having him sleeping the entire night in his crib, I'm hoping that the same progression will happen as before, when we first moved him into his crib: he stretched his sleep out and then started to be able to put himself to sleep. Right now, if he doesn't fall asleep eating then we rock him to sleep. Last night he had to be dead asleep for me to be able to put him down in his crib.
We are considering what we will do if things don't work themselves out on their own. A friend from my Moms Group just recently had to have her one year old cry it out in intervals because she has been waking up about eight times per night every night for her entire life. She made it a lot longer than I would have in that situation, that's for sure! As difficult as I know it will be, we may have to resort to CIO if Nate doesn't start being able to put himself to sleep soon. I keep coming up with excuses not to do it just yet though, like "We are going to be moving sometime soon and that's going to ruin any good habits that we've established, so we might as well wait until after we move." Who knows when that's going to be?
Anyway, Nate has been sitting like a champ for a while now and, although he doesn't using rolling as a mode of transportation just yet, he can roll from front to back and vice versa. He also taught himself to clap. The last day of my Winter Break, out of nowhere, he started clapping while he was on the floor playing with his toys. I was sitting on the couch and started clapping back, which cracked him up, then he would clap again. We continued taking turns for a little while. He also bounces to music when it's on and likes making music with his rattles. My Mom said they had a little band going one day last week, Nate on the rattle and her using things from around the house as other instruments. And we have some teeth coming through! I can see the tops of his two center teeth on the bottom. He isn't in pain anymore and has been in a great mood for the last four to five days. (Although his mood during the day was never really bad; it was the night wakings that were the difficult part of this first round of teething for us.)
Right now we are all on the couch watching football. Dan brought the newspaper over for Nate to play with and he is having a great time waving it around. I can already see his hands and feet becoming black with the ink and he has a little spot on his nose, too. It's almost time for his late morning veggies. He has been eating a ton lately!
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