While Snoozy Sleeps

In general, I try to keep sleeping talk to a minimum because I feel like otherwise, I could go on all day.  I think there's a natural focus on our babies' sleeping habits because they really affect everything else.  If Thumper isn't sleeping, I'm not sleeping.  Then that leads to grumpiness on both our parts, and finally something approximating despair for me.  But when he's sleeping better?  No problem!

Plus, sleep is ever-changing.  I think the last time I had really mentioned it, we'd been forced to ditch the swing, but things were going surprisingly well.  Thumper was napping in his crib, though every day felt like a gamble.  What I don't think I mentioned is also that things had gotten weird.

He'd been working on rolling from his back to his stomach for some time.  He'd been able to go from stomach to back at about three months, but the opposite way took until almost six months.  And then, within a month, he started rolling onto his stomach in his sleep.

I had known this would happen eventually.  Even though SIDS-prevention protocol says you should lay babies down to sleep on their backs, eventually they'll roll around on their own.  And the theory goes that if the baby can roll back if they need to, it's fine.  Since he'd had that escape rolling down since three months, I didn't think I needed to worry.

Until he started rolling.  Because a more accurate way of describing it would be that he was rolling onto his face.

Seriously.

Thumper wouldn't roll his head to the side.  If I tried to nudge it myself, he resisted.  Sometimes he wedged his hands under his face like in the above photo, sometimes he just full face-planted into the mattress.  I am not exaggerating when I say this was terrifying to me.  All I could do was roll him over.  Sometimes, in his sleep, he would try to roll right back, and if I fought him he'd wake up.  Eventually I discovered that he was more likely to prefer to "roll" in one direction, so if he started to fight, I'd switch direction.  Meanwhile, I was waking up in the middle of the night, in-between feedings, to check on him and roll him.  

My anxiety was through the roof on this issue.  After a few weeks, I brought it up to his doctor.  He was vaguely startled, but said, "Well, I won't lose sleep over this, and you shouldn't either... He can roll back if he needs to" etc.  But then he added, "But if you see him like that, I'd flip him over."  So my anxiety only abated somewhat.  

At some point - I'm not sure when - he really did begin to naturally turn his head to the side.   He'll still do the face-on-hands thing from time to time, but not for very long and then he'll shift to something else.  I'm no longer concerned about it.  But lest we think sleeping got easy...

Somehow, in-between teething and the swing and being sick, we fell into the habit of putting Thumper to sleep in my arms, whether he was nursing to sleep or not.  At first, I thought, "Well, he's a baby; if ever there were a time to let him fall asleep in my arms, this is it."  It didn't seem to particularly impact anything else.  

Over time, however, his sleep has slowly been deteriorating.  He used to wake up maybe twice a night, but that number has grown.  I really noticed it recently, when the Yeti had to go out of town for a few days and it was just me and the kid.  He slept straight through the first four hours, then woke up somewhere between every 45 minutes to every hour and a half thereafter.  And I couldn't blame it on the Yeti's snoring.  Also, getting him to sleep in the first place was becoming more and more of a battle. 

Naps weren't much better.  So in my bleary haze I started googling and I came across this article.  It basically described Thumper perfectly.   In short, it's saying Thumper developed object permanence and is freaking out at waking up in a different place.  

First I despaired at having screwed up so royally, since he was going to sleep in his crib before.  Also, the post says I could try slowly transitioning him - moving him when he's not quite asleep, aware of where he is, but too tired to care - but implies that since he's so old now I might have to just do cry it out.  While I am aware that some CIO methods are much more kind and nuanced than just saying, "You're on your own, kid," the idea makes me cringe and I want to avoid it if possible.  

So I started trying to transition.  I still hang on to him as usual, but around the time his eyes close for more than a few seconds I get up and move him into the crib.  Sometimes his eyes open on the way, sometimes when I lay him down, and he usually moves his hand around, feeling the crib sheet.  But typically he then goes right back to snoozing.

It's been about a week, and I'm telling you, the change was almost immediate.  His naps have switched from something like a half hour to around 2 hours.  He still gets up about three times to eat - that's a separate issue - but it's always at least 2 hours apart, and he's sleeping in later in the mornings.  And just getting him down in the first place is much easier and faster.  In the middle of the night, I'm getting him down faster because I'm not waiting for him to fall into that deep sleep, so I'm getting more sleep time that way, too.

We'll call this the Yeti Scissor Suplex

So that's where we're at right now.  Not perfect, but a heck of a lot better than I was - I even feel rested enough to post!  Here's hoping it keeps up.