Alone at Night...

You may have noticed in the last post that sleeping time for Oliver was very stressful.  He's always been an opinionated baby, and when he was tired the only way he would calm down was to bang his head against our shoulders until we started bouncing him to sleep.  It used to work like a charm and he'd fall asleep really well.  He'd wake up once during the night, and after I fed him I could just put him right back into bed and he'd fall back asleep really easily.

Right before our vacation, sleep time became chaotic, and Oliver would be crying in our arms for 2 1/2-3 hours.  Putting him down made the cries turn into shrill screams that took a long time to calm down, so I couldn't with good conscience leave him to "cry it out" because I just knew it would hurt him and me.  His lips were also getting really chapped from all of the crying.  Vacation sleeping was random, with a couple sleeping through the night (more than "by the book" of 6 hours, but going to sleep before we did, and then waking us up at a decent hour in the morning), and a couple nights of almost no sleep unless we were holding him.  After vacation his sleep was a LOT worse, and he would wake up every couple of hours like he hasn't done since he was about 2 weeks old, which is literally when he started waking up only once or twice during the night.  Not only that, his cries are getting louder so his daddy couldn't sleep through them anymore (which I started letting him, even though he was always a willing diaper changer in the middle of the night, I figured since I could take a nap during the day I'd let him sleep).  Whether it was teething, his little cold, or just sleep regression, it was getting too hard for us.

I had been recommended to read "The Baby Whisperer" while I was still pregnant, but I was reading so many other books that I just never got around to getting it.  One night as I was trying and trying to get Oliver to lay down without waking up, I saw that my sister-in-law had the book, so I picked it up and started reading it, told Matthias all about it in the morning, and then Oliver got it for me for Christmas.  If I had started on day one, things would have been easier, but luckily this baby whisperer is a very patient lady, and somehow wrote into her book how I could be more patient with our little boy.  Within a week we were done bouncing and I could just hold him in the rocking chair and rock him to sleep.  You have no idea how much more relaxing and less stressful sleep time became just because of that!  Then it took another 2 or so weeks to get him to fall asleep in his crib, with me being there to comfort him with soft shushes and pats as he needed them. It wasn't easy, and sometimes it still took him a couple of hours to go to sleep, but now I can just put him down to sleep and he'll usually put himself to sleep within a few minutes, and the crying is only momentary until he finds his hands or just starts talking himself to sleep.  He will also go down for bed earlier (because I know what to look for to see if he's tired), wake up just before we go to bed for a feeding, and then he's down until 3 or 4 for another feeding, and this morning he didn't get me up until 7:15.  Total he's getting 10-12 hours of sleep at night, which I knew was where he should be, but I just didn't know how to get him there.

In light of these wonderful developments, we have moved Oliver to his own room on Saturday.  Since we took the bumpers off of his crib because he would roll over to them and hug them against his face (silly boy!), he just loved to watch us walk around getting ready for bed, etc. instead of going to sleep.  He was still sleeping in our room because I thought it'd be best to wait until he was really sleeping through the night, but he's also become a lighter sleeper, so we decided to move him to his own room on Saturday.  His first nap was hard for him, but now he's a pro at sleeping in his own room, and now we can read our scriptures aloud at night!  I can still hear him when he cries at night, but I think he is able to sleep better because we aren't walking around, opening drawers, flushing the toilet, turning lights on and off while he's trying to sleep.  I thought it was really important for him to be able to sleep anywhere, but his sleeping habits are so much better now that he knows that his bed is for sleeping, and that he'll get a story and lots of kisses before going to bed.  Yesterday at church he was just fine falling asleep in someone's arms when he was tired, even though there was lots of commotion.  I really feel like we have reached a happy medium, and now that I don't have to spend hours upon patient hours helping him sleep, I can actually get things done.  Of course, here I am on the computer writing a blog post, so maybe I should go get some laundry started and work on the filing system I was starting.

ETA 1/30/2010  Right after I wrote that post on Monday his sleep schedule went downhill again.  We're blaming it on teeth though, since he's been wanting to bite EVERYTHING in sight (even my cheekbones and chin).  Last night he finally slept more peacefully.  I have a feeling it'll be like this until his teeth finally pop out, but I like