My wonderful cousin Jesse gave me a little present for Ryan. It was a bib that states"Star of Mommy's Blog". So I figure I should continue with that trend and make this post about RYAN!
He is 7 weeks old today, and he is still not a sleeper. Day time naps are a challenge every day (you never know what you are going to get) and night time sleep is equally as challenging. On a positive note, Ryan is officially sleeping in his crib all night, every night. I decided I just had to pick a day and do it. Even though right now its a little bit harder on me, I know eventually I will be glad we made the transition. I'll explain why its hard on me in a bit. So last Saturday was crib day. Every night at around the same time I bring him up, change his diaper and clothes, swaddle him tight, and play lullabies while I feed him one last time. Our little night time routine is going well. Another positive note is that he does not seem to be in as much pain when he is laying down. At this point he is able to fall asleep in his crib and stay asleep for a while. These are huge improvements from a few weeks ago. Of course the first night we tried to put him to sleep in his own room we had a HUGE thunderstorm. The house was literally shaking from the thunder. The power went out and I was not able to use the monitor to watch him, so I just sat in bed with a flashlight praying for it to come back on. Ryan was not phased by any of it... but mommy was a nervous wreck!
The reason it is so difficult on me is that he still wakes up soooo frequently and needs my help to get back to sleep. Whether he spits up, needs to eat, or wants his pacifier, I need to get out of bed, plod down the hall and spend sometime with Ryan. Sometimes this process can be up to an hour and a half before he is actually back to sleep. I spend just about as much time in his room at night as I do in my own.
Here is an example of a typical night at this point: Start the bedtime routine at 8pm. He is normally then sleeping by 9:30. I can then sleep til he wakes up (and these days he still only goes about 3 hours between feedings) which is probably around 12. Then the process of changing, feeding, burping, and getting him back to sleep takes at least an hour, so I am back in bed around 1:30. Then he might sleep til 4 and we get up to do it all over again. He then sleeps for a little bit, but once we hit 6:30 he gets very fussy and wants to be up again. I have not figured out why he is so distressed at this time in the am, but mornings are always rough. So in total I get about 5 hours a sleep a night, but it is broken into 1 or 2 hour increments.
If you have not figured it out yet, I am desperate for some consecutive sleep! I have not slept for more than 3 hours consecutively since March 1... that's almost two months! I would love for him to get just 4-5 hours of sleep in one stretch. I am not asking for him to sleep through the night... just some longer increments. I follow other blogs and a forum of mothers who gave birth in March, and I find myself super jealous of the mothers who already have babies sleeping for 8 hour stretches. It seems like many babies are better sleepers after 6 weeks, and Ryan is one of the few who still wakes up so frequently.
Anyway, the only thing Mike and I seem to be able to talk about these days is sleep...or lack thereof!
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