I have just read The No-Cry Sleep Solution
We have three main issues:
- Most sleep is still in our bed. Last night I transferred him successfully to the bedside crib, and lay awake listening to his grunts and snuffles and wheezes. Turns out I now sleep more soundly if we both fall asleep in bed, feeding. We both need to unlearn the co-sleeping habit.
- Sources suggest that three daytime naps of around two to three hours would be good at this stage. We definitely don’t have anything like this much daysleep. We might get one good nap and a couple of snoozes, but that’s all. I have to learn to recognise sleepiness and somehow capitalise upon it; at present, all crying is treated as a demand for food. He is getting quite round: 8lb 6oz at the last weighing.
- Maybe this is a repetition of the last two points. At the moment, his best sleeps are achieved by feeding in bed, or driving him around. He is not bad at going back to sleep when he wakes in the night, but I want to know how to “put him down” for a nap. I barely put him down at all, although I do occasionally get someone else to hold him. In the melting hot weather, this has been uncomfortable for both of us, but he continues to complain loudly if transferred to crib or moses basket or bouncy chair. I don’t like it when he cries. It sounds too much like there is woe and misery in his world, and I know it’s my job to make all that go away.
So that’s our project.
Weekends are good, though. Pete enables me to get good naps while he and Bernard gurn at each other for a couple of hours. They are cute.
I seem to recall that both of our kids started sleeping through the night at about 12 pounds…I suspect that there is something about their tummies holding enough to help them make the distance without getting hungry. Bernard is close. It sounds like you are doing a good job!
I agree with Karan – I think there is a size/sleep correlation. Of course, our Tom had a head start, being 9lb 8oz. And pity poor Kirsty Thingy off Location Location Location Location Whatever, who gave birth to 11lb 11oz of baby boy. Ouch.
I wonder what we humans did to get babies to go to sleep before we had cars to drive them around in…? Did we throw them on the back of our pet ruminant transport and go for a little jaunt?
For some reason, my gadget site is telling me all about how to get babies to sleep.
Maybe you need one of these … http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/zaky-infant-pillow-child-neglect-accomplice-191268.php
or perhaps some of these…. http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/lullabub-automatic-cot-rocker-191263.php
Not sure how often the little one gets out of the house but I’ve been told that plenty of fresh air helps small children (and me too) get to sleep.
Toby is now nearly 11lb (largely due to the medicated formula he is on actually meaning food stays down as opposed to breastmilk which just bounced up) so Bernard isn’t so tubby yet
I have found with Toby its a case for watching for yawns and rubbing his face before he gets overstimulated – which then requires me holding him and bobbing him to get him to sleep – and swaddling him for a nap at that point. Often if i do that and sit with him he’ll drop off. And sometimes he needs to cry for a few minutes to get there.
The crying=feeding thing is difficult when breastfeeding i think, as they take comfort from the breast as well as food, and i think its easier for them to snack and drift off on an increasingly short cycle. With the bottle its easier to regulate a little – toby still feeds on demand, roughly every 3 hours, but if he cries before that we know it generally isnt hunger (and if it is he screams the place down if we try anything else). I’m all for feeding on demand but i suppose if he isnt spacing feeds out very well, you might need to try other things before the breast?
Does Pete realise he’s gurning though?
Why do you both need to “unlearn” cosleeping? It’s the most natural way to sleep when you have offspring, and as long as you take a few precautions, very very safe. Babe sleeps better, lots of good bonding time – My daughter still sleeps with us, tho she’s getting ready to move into her own bed now – and she’s 5. I have cherished this time, and am kinda sad that she’ll be in her own bed soon…it’s so calming having her next to me.
Don’t let anyone – much less, society – tell you that Cosleeping is a “bad habit” that needs to be unlearned…if it doesn’t work for YOU, then that’s different. But IF you & your family are comfortable cosleeping, and sleep well that way, there’s no harm, truly – enjoy it!!
http://www.familybed.com/
http://www.naturalchild.org/jamesmckenna/babiesneed.html
I’d be a bit more cautious about co-sleeping. My brother-in-law and his wife are separated and heading towards divorce. The fact that they haven’t slept in their bed without their daughter for the whole of her life (she is now six) has been cited as a factor (one of several, it must be said). She simply will not sleep on her own as she was always taken to bed by her mother from an early age and has never got used to the idea of sleeping alone. (When she stays with us or at her grandparents’, she invariably climbs into bed with her brother or an adult for company). Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that co-sleeping is totally awful and should never happen. But I think it is a good idea for the child to be able to spend nights alone because, if they can’t, it could put a strain on the parents’ relationship.
Graybo, take a step back and listen to yourself! Your BIL and SIL slept with their child until she was 6 (her mother’s exclusive choice?) and now they are getting divorced, from which we must conclude that all babies belong in a cot from birth? There are plenty of divorced parents of cot-raised (even separate-room-raised) children; there are plenty of happily together parents of both varieties; there are more reasons to divorce than grains of sand on a beach.
Well, that’s why I said that it was one of many factors. But it was a factor – both partners have said so. I can only report their experience.
I found your site through a comment on my site. I am totally where you are. My baby is almost 6 weeks old and wakes up every 2 hours to feed, every night. Some nights he wakes up a few times an hour or hour and a half! He does sleep better in bed with us but I am afraid of rolling over on him or him suffocating so he sleeps in the bassinet in our room. I am jealous of the mommies who say they feed their baby at 11pm and he/she sleeps til 4 or 5 am. I am sure it will pass. Good luck!
At 3 weeks, the hatchling would normally only go to sleep in my arms (while playing video games into the early hours – I call it conditioning). If we were lucky, he’d sleep for up to 2 hours. Normally, it was about an hour between feeds.
At 6 weeks he got kicked out of our room into his own because he was a bloody loud sleeper and disturbed us all with his grunting and groaning. He’d still wake up every couple of hours for a feed though.
At 9 weeks, he went bottle only.
At 10 weeks, he started sleeping through the night.
At 8 months (i.e. this week) he’s suffering from “Night Terrors” and has been waking up at 4am for the last couple of nights. But apart from that, he’s generally sleeping for between 10-12 hours a night and is now having two long (1-2 hour) sleeps during the day.