By: teri on January 13, 2010
Just like I hoped, we are improving.
AJ stayed up until I fed him at 8:30 (though the last 20-30 minutes he was all but falling asleep without constant distraction).
He was asleep and then put in the crib at 8:50.
The first time he made a peep was 2am! 5 hours of straight sleep is a big improvement.
And that wasn’t the only improvement, at 2am when he started crying (not sure what it is about 2am but that is when he wakes up and cries every night) he only went for 25 minutes! -If your keeping track, which of course I am, Sunday he cried from 2-3:30am, Monday he cried from 2-3/3:15am, so 25 minutes was great.
He was pretty loud and I went in at 2 to give him a pacifier but it didn’t help and he cried hard and constant after I left so I went back in at 2:08. I didn’t pick him up but I shushed him, rubbed his tummy and arms, etc. to get him calm. I left a few minutes later and he cried pretty much immediately but I left him this time knowing that he was okay. I went back in at 2:20 and the pacifier was still in his mouth so I left again and he stopped by 2:25. yea!
He woke up once more at 3:30 but a quick pacifier in the mouth got him back to sleep.
At 4:45 he started crying and at this point I wasn’t sure if I should let him go (Tuesday morning he got up at 5:45) or if he was ready to be awake. I started by saying I am aiming for him to sleep from 9-5 right now, so I got up with him and he was awake and we had a good morning.
Yea for things getting better!
By: teri on January 12, 2010
Today has been a great day. We’re making some changes around here and so far they feel really good.
We made the decision Sunday that we can’t, well, that we don’t want to continue the way we are doing things. AJ is attached to me. And we can’t blame him, I am basically practicing attached style parenting. I sleep in the same bed with him and since the doctor said he may do well with a bit more food, I have been feeding him a lot more. While I love that he knows and loves me, I don’t like that I walk out of the room and he cries just because he can’t see me. Even when Norm is holding him!
He still hasn’t been sleeping well and I don’t have a lot of confidence in him being full so I will feed him at night and he still has minor tummy issues, so now, with the addition of solid foods, he is having a hard time pooping. He isn’t constipated, he just isn’t processing and digesting so it hurts him when he poops. So of course that makes me feel bad and if he is crying and his tummy is tight I wonder if he is in pain. Blah Blah Blah, there is always something right?
Well, we figured we need to start trying new things. Our first attempt is to back up a bit. Instead of putting him down at 7pm and wondering if he hungry and feeding him in the middle of the night and then having him wake up at 4am and be bummed that he is up so early, we are going to try to put him down later. Like we should have done when he was younger. Like what we did with the other boys. Now the goal is to let him take a nap in the late afternoon and then have him up and feed him one last time at 9pm and then put him down. I am comfortable expecting him to go from 9-5 without eating. So we are trying to start there and if we can get sleep from 9-5 that would be a gigantic success. Then hopefully we’ll pull back that 9pm to earlier and stretch that 5am to later. But that is getting ahead.
So Sunday night I moved out of his room and we put him in the crib. My secondary reason for doing this now is he very clearly is learning about his surroundings and what things mean. He knows if we put our arms out that we are going to pick him up. he knows if I put him in his little chair with a tray and his bib and stuff that he is going to get food, etc. I want him to know that his crib is where he sleeps. That is important to me.
Sunday was not the best night. We had dinner at a friends house and he slept in Norm’s arms from 6pm through the transfer into the car until we got home at 8pm. We couldn’t keep him up after that because he was very tired so I fed him at 8:30 and put him down. I think I went in and gave him his pacifier 2 or 3 times before 12:30am (and it worked and he went back to sleep for some amount of time). At 12:30 the pacifier didn’t work and he continued fussing and crying and I fed him at 12:50am. He went back down and about 2am he started crying again. It was pretty loud and his diaper was full so I changed him, rocked him a bit, gave him his pacifier and put him back. Kept crying loud off and on, mostly on, until 3:35am. I tried to stay out of the room as much as possible but if he cried without any lulls for any more than 15 minutes I went in. I probably went in 3-4 times trying to help. At 3:35 I picked him up and rocked him to sleep because the crying wasn’t working for me right then. He was back in his crib at 3:50 but that only lasted until about 4:15am so I went back in picked him up sat in the chair and (oops) I fell asleep with him on my chest. We slept like that until 5:15. At 5:30 I fed him and we were both up. (Though I was still really tired so I went back to sleep after Norm got up).
So not great right. But Monday we knew the plan and he took an early nap (around 8am) but really short (15 mins) and so we played and he was ready for a nap at 11. We went to Costco in the afternoon and he was great, but he fell asleep on the ride home (3:30) and slept while I took in the groceries (which of course I chose to let him do) which ended up being close to 30 minutes. So at 5pm when I wanted him to take a nap he wasn’t ready. He was nice and calm, but not sleepy. He ended up falling asleep at 6:15pm and sleeping until 7pm. But again, at 7 when he woke up he wasn’t happy, he was still tired. (Changing a kids schedule sucks) We forced him awake but holding him, bouncing him, having him watch the fish, we took him in the shower and we still didn’t last until 9pm. At 8:15 he was done so we gave up, fed him and put him down.
And last night we had a pretty good night. One way I know it was pretty good is that I don’t remember the exact times that I had to get up. Most likely it means it was quick and I didn’t have to wake all the way up to take care of it. I know I went in and gave him his pacifier two times before the crying at 2am. Oh, once was at 11:42pm because I remember thinking “so much for him sleeping longer with the later bedtime.” At 2am he started crying. It was loud and it was sad. I gave him his pacifier and even with it in his mouth he was crying. He also has been scooting himself to the top of the crib and one time he got his head under the bumper (the ties came off). I pulled him back to the center and gave him the pacifier. Nothing really helped. He basically cried for an hour. But at 3 I didn’t move him back to the middle I left him with his head on the top and just gave him the pacifier hoping he’d have no where to go. He was quiet for about 20 minutes and then started crying. I went in, saw the pacifier was still in his mouth, he looked fine so I walked right out. Got in bed and about 5 minutes later, he stopped. Just sudden stop. I almost went back in to make sure he was okay but didn’t want to mess it up. The next time I heard him was at 5:45am! I had just slept from 3:25am to 5:45am! I haven’t done that in months!
It wasn’t a perfect night, but the crying was better than the night before and so was the sleep. Small improvements is all I’m looking for at this point. And if we can continue making those small improvements than I will be good to go. This morning I didn’t even go back to bed when Norm came out. I didn’t need to. In fact, I did a p90X workout. Pretty great right?
By: teri on January 6, 2010
So last night I stayed up and worked in the office. I have been neglecting some duties because it is hard to find time during the day to sit down at my desk and computer.
If the boys are awake they don’t last too long with me at the desk. Tyler does sometimes because I can get him to color and if I allow Jaxon to play on a computer he would last hours, but AJ not so much. But when AJ has his afternoon nap I try to line up Tyler’s nap too and then I always have to make those decisions to make. IF, both boys go down for a nap, I now have some time. I can sit at the computer, do housework, maybe get in a workout or nap.
AJ is still not sleeping all that well and so lately I’ve been going for naps if all possible (though unfortunately it hasn’t been real possible because their naps aren’t lining up).
So my desk has been piled high with alua finances which includes bills that need to be paid, checks that need to be recorded and then deposited, bank statements that need to be reconciled and some general catch up. I also have all our personal finances dating back to the end of November. The receipts are no longer able to stack on my desk so they are overflowing in a monster pile. I have a new laptop that Norm got me weeks ago, maybe a month, that is sitting on my desk waiting for files to be copied over so I can use it and then I have all the miscellaneous crap like photos, Jaxon’s numerous drawings, and whatever else makes it to my desk. It stressed me just going in there.
So last night I decided to take a bit more control. The boys were all in bed and I had time to myself so I sat down to start. I figured I would still be able to get some sleep and I didn’t have to stay up two nights in a row and I always get to sleep in after I hand of AJ so it shouldn’t be such a big production.
Well, I did make a nice big dent into my desk duties. Alua finances are almost taken care of and I did some straightening up so it doesn’t look so overwhelming.
BUT, here are the things I did not consider.
I stayed up after I was done with my desk for the night to pump which took an extra 30 minutes.
Tuesday night is Norm’s WOW night so he is up late (and where he would usually easily take AJ at 6am so I can go back to sleep, on Tuesdays he doesn’t go to bed until midnight, so he’s tired and not awake Wednesday mornings) and we shouldn’t both be up late on the same night while AJ isn’t sleeping.
In addition to his late night, he has a dentist appointment this morning at 8am, so he’ll need to leave the house around 7:40am which doesn’t give me my usual morning nap anyway.
So there is the start of my bad decision.
We also have plans tonight and most likely will be out of the house until about 9pm so I can’t put AJ down at 7:30 and go to sleep with him early. More bad planning.
And the most unfortunate part for me is AJ’s night. I went to bed just after 11pm. I think the last time I saw the clock it was 11:13pm.
AJ started crying at 1:06am and continued until 3:23am. During that 2 hour period he would cry, with his pacifier still in his mouth, for only a few seconds up to at most a minute, every few minutes. I got two or three 10-20 minute lulls where I thought he fell asleep, and I probably did, but the sadness started again. I fed him in there hoping it would help but it didn’t. Once he fell asleep after 3am he went until 5:10 so that was nice. I got 2 hours and then another 2 hours.
I’m tired.
By: teri on October 27, 2009
Its that time again…
But first, here’s why I love keeping records. We’ve been telling everyone who asks “How’s AJ doing?” that he is wonderful blah blah blah, but he doesn’t sleep well like his brothers did. We go on to say that we were really blessed with Tyler because “the kid just slept” and we didn’t have to do anything about it. Both Norm and I have told people that.
Well, we have come to that point where we are going to attempt to teach AJ how to sleep. We’ve come to grips with the fact that it isn’t his bowels that are keeping him from sleeping or the caffeine I was drinking or any other exterior excuse. We were both stalling because we have this feeling that AJ is going to be a screamer and we aren’t looking forward to letting him cry. But two nights ago when he woke up crying and we tried to comfort him the only thing that got him to stop crying is when I turned on a light and put him in a sitting position. He immediately stopped crying, his eyes popped open and all was good. Except the fact that it was 1am and not time to be awake. It was then that I made the impulsive decision that it was time to teach him when we sleep. (But I’ll get to that in another post)
Back to the part about records.
After two nights of partial crying we decided we needed a plan of attack and some ground rules because I find it is easier if we have these things figured out before they happen at 2am when all we want to do is sleep so we give in to whatever is easiest to make that happen. I wanted to pull out any records I had of Jaxon’s and Tyler’s nights so we could take a look at what we did and how they progressed and such. Tonight I brought out what I wrote about Tyler. All that “we never had to teach Tyler anything, he just slept” stuff…. total crap! I have written down started at 4 weeks old us putting him in his crib and him crying a bit. Now granted, it wasn’t a lot of crying and he did sleep for large chunks (which AJ does not) but it didn’t just happen. The records for Tyler go from mid July to mid Aug and then stop. Then, in Nov 2007, they start up again. The top of the paper says “Its time to teach you to sleep” and each night there is a detailed account of what happened. Cry, pat, put paci in, sleep, wake, cry, rock, etc, etc. The nights we had with him sound exactly like AJ is right now.
The beauty of that is 1)how we don’t remember those nights for Tyler at all and can reasonably assume we’ll forget our current sleepless nights with AJ and 2)AJ can become just as great as a sleeper as both Tyler and Jaxon. Those records give me hope that sleep is in my future, and I definitely need that hope.
By: teri on October 21, 2009
AJ is not like his brother’s when it comes to sleeping and we are feeling it. We’ve blamed all sorts of things on AJs lack of sleep. Our current issue is the fact that AJ is not pooping. As a baby you couldn’t change a diaper without there being something in there, now its so infrequent I find myself wishing for him to have a blowout. It has been 12 days since he pooped and it just so happens that he slept pretty well right around that last time. As days passed he slept less and we blamed his bowels.
Its almost always been his tummy that we blame. For awhile we blamed the things that I was eating so I stopped eating delicious things on his behalf. Then we thought it was the caffeine I was consuming so I stopped drinking soda (boo). But about two days ago Norm and I acknowledged the fact that it may just be time to teach AJ how to sleep.
Unfortunately that could involve crying. Based on what we know of AJ so far, it could involve LOTS of crying and we are not eager to start that.
So the first thing I am trying is to make sure his days and nights are balanced. Meaning that he is awake a good portion of the day so that he can sleep at night. I’m happy to say that last night was the first good sleep we got in, well, in about 9 days. We’ve been tired!
Two nights ago (10/19/2009) was horrible and he didn’t sleep much so it wasn’t a big surprise that he was tired yesterday.
10/20/2009:
I got a bit worried when he slept from about 10:30am (after eating) until about 3pm with a few wake ups in and out of the car, a wake up to eat and about 20 minutes of me caring him around. I figured if I let him sleep that much we were in for another rough night.
After he ate at 3pm we had great wake time until around 4:40 when he started getting a bit fussy. I tried to put him down for a nap but at 5:30 when Daddy got home I was still trying. Dad got you to sleep but you only stayed asleep for about 20 minutes and then you were miserable. We held you and dealt with it.
At 7pm I fed you on one side and you were pretty happy. We read books and put the other boys to bed at 7:30 and then you and I sat and watched TV. You got fussy around 7:40 so I fed you on the other side and put you in bed around 8pm.
At 11pm you cried and needed a pacifier put in (which Daddy did)
Then you went back to bed all the way until 3:15am.
(WooHoo… I went to bed when you did at 8pm so I got 7 hours of sleep with only two interruptions (Ty fell out of his bed and yelped a bit around 1am)
The second WONDERFUL part of last night is after your 3am feeding, you went back down and slept all the way until 6:30am!
That was a good night for us. Lately you have been up and ready to be awake by 4am.
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