Discussion: Sleep

There has been a lot of discussion about how well or not well the little ones sleep. This is what I will add today (because who know what it will be like tomorrow... it is a continuous evolution):

I just put Inara to sleep for a nap. It is 8:00 am.

In general, she is pretty predictable. She goes to bed between 6-7pm, wakes up twice (sometime between 12-2, sometime between 4-5) and then gets up between 7-8am. Last night we kept her up until 7:45.

This morning she got up at 6:00. Instead of being her usual happy, independent self, she started off in the hyper-right-before-needing-to-sleep mode. Then she got fussy. So I put her down and spent the next 30 minutes listening to her crying herself to sleep. I HATE this. I hate knowing that I could go comfort her and make her stop crying, but that if I do, she will still be under-slept and unhappy.

She is pretty great and easy. Travels well in the car, will fall asleep anywhere we put her down for the night, wakes up happy, takes naps in her pack and play or her stroller... I would say she is somewhat flexible. But not with timing. I feel like if we miss her window for going to sleep, it is so much harder for her.

I just told the babysitter to come an hour later so I can have my baby for a bit of nice time when she wakes from her nap.

No advice for you, if you've been reading my log, you've seen that Katherine has been having her fair share of sleep struggles recently, too. I feel like Katherine is usually pretty predictable as well, but once she gets behind on sleep, it's a self-reinforcing pattern that I'm still not sure how to break. I don't think her daycare routine is helping, either- now that she's in the 1-2 year old room, they take one nap from after lunch to about 2:00, so about 2-2.5 hours, and I feel like maybe she wasn't quite ready to drop the morning nap yet.

Maybe tonight will be the night where Katherine figures it all out and starts sleeping well again. Maybe.

Well, I'm reading this while trying to convince James to nap on me because he just needs to sleep. I manage about one 30 minute nap on the bassinet per day and that's actually decent progress. Usually he sleeps on me for 2-3 hours in the morning plus 1-2 hours in the carrier in the afternoon and probably another nap on me too.

At least he sleeps in his bassinet at night, maybe from 9-7 with one or two wake-ups. I feel like I need to try getting him to sleep from 7-7 although when I tried putting him down at 8 he just woke up at 6 so that didn't help. He's only 12 weeks old so things are changing all the time but I think he's starting to get old enough to develop a routine.

Ok, the four month sleep regression sucks. I have no idea how I'm supposed to teach him to put himself back to sleep without the pacifier. Plus, James was wide awake from 12:30 until 3, which he hasn't done since has was a tiny baby. Eventually I gave him a massage in the middle of the night!

Hopefully the wide-awake was a one-off! I definitely remember the occasional terrible night around then (one was a wake-up-and-want to play middle of the night, one was wake up every 1.5h for no apparent reason sometime around 4 months). So good luck, hope past two nights have been better!

We gave up trying to do anything the way we were "supposed to" do to "sleep train" and figured whatever we do to get good sleep is good. Long story short, this is why Lukas still sleeps with (at least one of) us! :-) (Plus he is super cuddly and cute so we can't really resist.)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure all the "you should do things this way-it works like a charm!" people have no actual experience with babies. Katherine is closing in on 18 months, and the only way I can get her to sleep is by letting her keep her pacifier. I'm probably supposed to take it away from her, but at this point she only gets it at night, and her dentist and pediatrician aren't concerned, so I'm pretty much in the "whatever gets me the most sleep" camp too.

Thanks! Last night was much better although not quite as good as it was before. Do you guys put anything on their hands to keep them from getting cold? We're just trying to transition out of swaddling and his hands seem cold although maybe as long as he's sleeping ok, it's fine. I know baby circulation means their hands are often cold but I also think I would be cold with my hands uncovered.

Katherine's hands and feet always seemed cool, but she'd just kick/pull off anything I tried to cover them with, so I don't think the temperature really bothered her. I think overheating is a bigger concern, as they'll pull their hands and feet in if they are chilly. If they're sprawled out with little cactus arms, it's a fair bet they're comfortable.

We get these: https://www.sleepingbaby.com/collections/zipadee-z...

They are touted as swaddle transitions, but since we never swaddled her, we use them as wearable blankets. The shape is good for keeping hands and feet warm while still allowing movement as per the baby's development.

Also, we are in the "do what works to get everyone the most sleep" camp.

I've heard that sleep training must be done over and over for those who travel or get sick or go through a growth spurt or or or....

Regarding pacifier and sleep, here's my anecdotal support story: there's a kid in Lukas' class who was still very dependent on his pacifier going into this year (>2 years old) and the teachers said that sleeping with it was fine. The issue they were concerned with was learning to talk, which you can't do with a pacifier in your mouth. So they would take it away when he was awake but still let him sleep with it, saying that kids eventually drop it when they're ready.

I didn't realize this conversation was going on until now. Sleep! It's all we think about. We also had a problem with Sofie's hands getting super cold and we solved that by not putting her to sleep in her crib anymore. She still sleeps in her nest in the bed between Ross and I, and is warmer there. One thing that we did try was to put her in pjs that were too big so they would cover her hands. Have you found a solution, Carol?

Sofie also sleeps with her pacifier. Now that she is a bit older she is getting better at finding it herself and also relying on it less. But that's another reason she sleeps in the bed with us. We can just reach over and pop the pacifier back in when she wakes up without having to get up. She naps well in her nest, which is great, but that now means that she naps less well in the stroller! After about one month she stopped sleeping well on either Ross or me, and slept better in her own space (or in the ergobaby!). I'm not worried about the pacifier. She (mostly) only gets it when she's sleeping (sometimes in the stroller or car seat, though often we are trying to encourage her to sleep then).

I just realized the target PJs have built in hand covers but I haven't used them yet. I'm not sure because he likes to suck on his fingers. I have ordered a zipadee zip too but it's not here yet. Honestly, I'm not sure cold hands bother James.

I also am not limiting pacifier use yet. He also usually only gets it in bed or in the car seat.