Sleep

I thought I'd write a few thoughts about the holy grail of for all new parents SLEEP!  Honestly Clay and I have been very blessed (lucky) and Pierce has always been a great night time sleeper.  We heard all of the horror stories about babies who have their days and nights mixed up resulting in parents walking the floor night after night.  Pierce pretty much had his days and nights straight from the get go. 

We also got lucky because Pierce was always good about falling asleep at night.  I had read (or heard) that it helps babies if you give them a bed time routine.  That way if they ever have a rough evening just going through the bedtime routine can sometimes calm them down and they will go to sleep.  So at about a week old Clay and I started a bedtime routine where we get Pierce in his PJs and then I nurse him while Clay reads a bedtime story.  Then when Pierce falls asleep Clay puts him to bed.  It works really well and it even worked out great one night when Pierce was refusing to calm down to nurse and finally we just laid him down and he passed out.  I guess the bedtime routine helped!

While I was pregnant I wrote a blog about my theories on parenting and I promised to update everyone on how the theory worked out in real life!   One of the theories I discussed was sleeping arrangements.  I noted that the idea of co-sleeping REALLY freaked me out and I had NO intention of having Pierce in my bed.  As it turns out that's mostly how things worked out.  We had a bassinet in our bedroom and Pierce slept in there.  As I mentioned he was always good about going to sleep and so once we put him down it wasn't a big deal. 

Clay and I also had a great arrangement for nighttime that worked well.  For the first several days Clay got up with me whenever Pierce needed to nurse which was great because I always seemed to need help.  However, after a few days I finally had the hang of things and one night Clay got up and was just sitting there with me at 1am.  So I told him the deal was I would always wake up and feed the baby and Clay could sleep.  However, if the baby was fed and changed and just refused to go to sleep then it was all Clay and I would to back to sleep!  The arrangement worked great and there were only a handful of times that Clay had the privilege of an all nighter!

Pierce did sleep in our room until he was almost 6 months old.  I knew at one point I would move him to his nursery but I didn't know when that would be.  I tried to stay flexible on this because I figured we would just have some sort of a sign, but in my mind it would happen around 6 months.   However, I kept him in our room because he was still getting up to nurse 2-3 times per night.  And then something AMAZING happened...

In December Clay and I had our company Christmas parties and they happened to be on back to back evenings.  A family friend agreed to keep Pierce both evenings and so we took the Pack-n-Play over to her house.  At this point Pierce had outgrown the bassinet so he was sleeping in the Pack-n-Play in our room and I decided just to leave it at our friend's house over night so we didn't have to hassle with it both nights.  I figured one night of having to go to Pierce's room to get him to nurse wouldn't be so bad.

So Friday night we came home and put a baby to bed.  And what do you know... He slept through the night!!!  I figured it could have been a fluke and just be really tired from a late night but I figured we'd try it again.  So Saturday night we put him down in his room and again he slept through the night!  It's a MIRACLE!

In the end I figure I was doing it to myself.  When Pierce was asleep in our room I would wake up to any little movement and thinking he was waking to nurse I would go get him and not give him the opportunity to fall back to sleep.  However, once he was in the nursery I had the baby monitor turned down quiet enough that I didn't hear the little movements and he just put himself back to sleep.  So as of the middle of December we have a baby who sleeps through the night and has been evicted from mom and dad's room promoted to his own bedroom!

As for co-sleeping, it's funny how reality changes your perspective on things.  I was scared to co-sleep because of all of the horror stories the news reports of babies suffocating.  My aunt told me not to worry and said that unless you're on drugs you won't squish the baby.  In the end I will say we did co-sleep some.  Once I started back to work if Pierce woke up after 4am I would pull him into bed with me so he could nurse while I got another hour of sleep.  It definitely helped me keep my sanity!  But I also made it clear he shouldn't get too comfy because this was NOT his bed!

Napping is another story.  I have a baby who WILL NOT NAP!  While Pierce was/is a fabulous nighttime sleeper, this baby does not take naps.  Even at daycare when I get his report card there are days where he maybe only slept for 30 minutes to an hour all day.  It's enough to drive you crazy because it's impossible to get anything done.  We've tried leaving him in his crib to fuss it out or let him roll around on the floor playing until he passes out from exhaustion.  I tell ya, this baby doesn't nap!  Unless of course it's in mommy and daddy's bed.  We have found that if you need to take a nap the best (and really only way) to get Pierce to take a nap is to bring him into our bed and snuggle him.  Then everyone gets a nap and that little boy sleeps so great!  So while I'm still not a fan of co-sleeping at night (mostly because I think it would be really hard to break the baby of the habit), I am a HUGE fan of co-sleeping naps!

And because I can, here's a cute baby!