Well...every time I think I've figured out ways to keep Tiny Boy asleep at night, he proves otherwise. Last night we were awake mostly from 12-5 in a nonstop nursing-burping-changing-holding-nursing cycle. He wasn't particularly fussy unless I put him down, but he also wouldn't sleep, at least not for more than a short (like 30 minutes?) stretch. Tried the rocker. Tried the moses basket. Even dragged the swing into my bedroom, which worked for about two minutes.
There are a couple issues here:
1. He doesn't have his days and nights "mixed up" as some people say...he just doesn't distinguish between them. He has a few (3-4) longish periods of wakefulness in a 24 hour period, not totalling more than about 6 hrs. Yesterday he slept and slept and slept (2 round trips in the car) and decided I was really interesting to look at at about 2 in the morning. How a person who sleeps 18 hrs can manage to keep me up most of the night is somewhat astonishing, but there you go.
2. The nursing/belly ache confusion. He thinks he's hungry and cries, so I feed him, even though I know that his real problem is that he hasn't burped adequately or he's refluxing. It's easy enough during the day to ask LG to hold him, which means he can't smell the milk. At night? I hold him and he starts rooting (i.e. bashing his head into my chest) and gets very annoyed if I hold him facing outward the try to placate him with the pacifier.
Last night these two issues combined into probably one of our worst nights in his 28 days (yes, he's 4 weeks, folks!). Thankfully, we both fell asleep around 4:30 or 5:00, he didn't wake to nurse until 7:30, LG decided to take advantage of us sleeping to watch extra TV and leave us alone, and we didn't get out of bed until 9:00ish. Then more milk and multiple diaper changes and a bath and a very happy alert boy. And an older sister who decided cleaning the bathroom looked fun?!*
Well, it's been 2 hours of baby sleeping in the swing--2 hours of helping LG with a computer project and reading around on the blogosphere and creating a crockpot stew--and now he's stirring...so must milk him and hopefully have an afternoon. This mom of two thing is nothing and everything like I imagined. Which is a story for another day.
*I have a whole post on the craziness that is LG right now. She'll do grunt work around the house if she sees me doing it, but absolutely refuses to put away her own stuff (or my stuff that she takes out) which I find both amusing and infuriating, depending on the particular moment.
Ah, yes, I too dragged the swing into my bedroom. And the bouncy seat. And the pack-n-play. The only thing that worked at all was the bouncy seat as long as I could reach down from the bed and keep it rocking. (And to think the twins are too big for those seats already.)
ReplyDeleteI hope you get some good quality sleep soon!
Point 2 sounds exactly like Goldie. We finally got to sleep at 8am one "night" earlier this week. She'll just keep on that cycle but she's also colicky and cries like someone's cutting her arm off. We've had moderate success with some baby calming herbs - one is Colic Calm and the other is Mommies Bliss Gripe Water. They don't always work, but sometimes when she's screaming or we know it's a stomach ache that's making her nurse endlessly, these put her right to sleep. Other times they have less impressive results.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
I'll look into those calming herbs...thanks! It's interesting how similar our 5 lb/37-weekers are turning out to be...
ReplyDelete