More for my future benefit than yours, I'd like to chronicle Oliver's recent sleep saga. I'm certain I'll look back and wonder about the time frame for his sleep issues and what we did to get him to sleep better.
For the last several months, I have limited my dairy intake in the belief that it was making Oliver spit up a LOT and contributing to night wakings/sleeplessness. In the past month or longer, it became apparent that even under dairy-free circumstances, he was not sleeping well. I was nursing him 2-3 times per night, sometimes more. And this is not a little peanut baby that might not be able to sleep through the night yet; we're talking a sixteen pound five-month-old who eats enough during the day to carry him through at least an initial 5-6 hour stretch at night. However. In just the last week, his first night waking has crept from midnightish to elevenish to tenish, and last night it was 9:30! Of course, last night I put him down at 5:30 to catch up some sleep (6:00 has become more typical), but still, a four hour stretch is not quite what I consider good nighttime sleep.
Since my parents have been visiting for the last week or so, I sought to minimize the crying and disruption and just went to Oliver whenever he fussed. I think this has contributed to more frequent night wakings and that really short initial sleep span. But he really has been up every 3-4 hours for a long time now. Therefore, also in the last week, I decided to heck with the dairy-free business. Thanksgiving means potatoes and turnips loaded with cream cheese, milk, and butter. Not to mention ice cream on top of pies. Other possible factors contributing to worsening sleep in the past week: upcoming milestone (see below!), six teeth STILL budding but not cut, excitement of a holiday and grandparents, sleeping in our room (albeit in his own crib), and finally, true hunger EVERY THREE HOURS.
Last night we gambled. After a successful nap extension in the afternoon leading to a three hour nap for Oliver, I put him to bed at his first yawn at 5:30. I figured, let's get this kid well rested so that we can start into some sleep training. Can you tell I've been researching sleep issues and sleep training while nursing in the whee hours? I'm learning the lingo, y'all. But back to last night - he woke at 9:30 and I decided there was no way he needed to eat already. Just no. I sent a man to do a woman's job, and Oliver seemed happy to receive his pacifier from Joel. He rolled around awhile and cried off and on for about half an hour, sometimes very loudly and angrily. But always with the slightest decrescendo at the end that told me he wasn't truly hysterical, but protesting and annoyed at not getting what he wanted. Joel finally went in again toward the end of the thirty minutes and picked him up briefly. He said Oliver was over the moon to be held on his side (no doubt mimicking a nursing position) and when he put him back into his crib, he again rolled right onto his side. He was asleep a few minutes later. He stirred again around...um...sometime in the 11-1 range. It all blurs together, honestly. But he went back to sleep of his own accord without crying, and didn't truly wake to nurse until around 1:30/2:00. That's pretty good! And his next waking was this morning after 6:00! I put him back in his crib around 6:30 and he stayed there until 8:30, awake for the last part of it but content to hang out.
I'm hoping this extinction thing carries over to tonight (and forever) and that we have officially dropped to one night feeding for good. And, by the way, this amazing night's sleep comes on the heels of me eating both stromboli and pizza in the same day. Hello again, dairy! Welcome back, happiness! I don't know if it ever was truly an ongoing dairy issue, but we did document significant reflux that seemed to correlate with ice cream intake over the summer. And he had some awful nights that happened after I splurged on yogurt or super cheesy dinner. Coincidence? The world may never know.
The milestone to which I alluded earlier is Oliver's newfound ability to roll back to front. No more stranded turtle! He's been rolling front to back for awhile now (I'm sure I documented that...right?) but now can roll every which way and maneuver himself all around his crib. I *think* I saw him sit up once in bed, but that was probably accomplished by rolling just the right way toward the side rail and kind of working his way up by rolling. That said, he seems very close to sitting up by himself; just needs to engage his core a little more (don't we all?). Also he is strong enough to stand up on his own but can't balance for long; he enjoys standing with his hands held, or hands around his waist to steady him.
Oliver is the happiest little guy ever. I'm his favorite, which is as it should be. He is also a captive audience to his brother and sister; he hears their voices, and it's curtains for nursing, much rather watch them bound around the room than enjoy the nectar of the gods, apparently. We're considering offering some oatmeal or sweet potatoes sometime soon, to help him with that nighttime sleeping.
We've started putting him under his play gym, and he rolls all about. I should probably start keeping a closer eye on him now that we have a Christmas tree whose branches are within his grasp if he rolls beneath it. Nothing like the risk of glass Christmas ornament shards to secure that Mother of the Year nomination.
Well, the big kids are throwing laundry and pinching each other's cheeks. They seem to be saying something about hungry and lunch, I don't know. It's like they expect the same thing to happen every day at noon? Toddlers are so needy.
And I love them. The end.
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