Some Ideas on Monsterous Sleep Issues

Stefan has struggled with night time sleep since birth. I think there have been 3 issues plaguing him. Diet (milk allergy), Sleep (or lack thereof) and a busy mind or body. I'm hoping this story and some of the info. may help someone out there in the same position. It's not you, it's your baby. It's really hard to know what they are trying to tell you when they only have a cry. Now at 6.5 months, my memory is kind of fuzzy (see it gets better), but I'll try to recap. I know I have left out some stuff we do to help, do check out the following post on techniques getting a high needs baby to sleep).

Let me start with how we sleep. I feel pretty strong about parenting the baby to sleep (babies sleep patterns are different, they don't necessarily drift off to sleep like an adult)- I don't follow all of one parenting style, attachment parenting would be what I do the most, but I've found, you can't predict a baby and you can't lock yourself into any ONE fashion of parenting. So, he has my bed, a co-sleeper attached, and a crib in his room. At night, he sleeps in bed with me, occasionally making his way to the sleeper. At first, it was just really hard to lift him from the sleeper (I had an emergency c-section after 4 days of unmedicated labor- I was hurtin' for about 2 months before I felt human again). It's also easier to nurse while sleeping if he's in bed with me. Until about 4-5 months he slept in everything but the "bed" places for naps or before I headed to sleep. Car seat was his favorite, then swing chair, sometimes the carriage. He's often in our bed, since I can sneak out ofter nursing him to sleep without moving him.

The first days in the hospital (I was there 3-4), he was mellow. Sean made the mistake of pointing out how "chill" he was. I guess anyone would be after what he'd been through. We arrived home and he started showing signs that something was wrong. Here is proof of where "Cry it out" (CIO) would have been detrimental- and this was before we realized it should never be used on children under 6 months. He'd start wailing, at 2 weeks old (too young for colic), starting at around 4 pm and this could go on until 12 am. The worst stretch was 6 hours of blood curdling screams. CIO isn't a practice I really agree with, but as confused, new parents out of ideas, I gave it a try. He cried one night for hours. I'm not sure what the "it" part of CIO is, he didn't get it out, and still hasn't.

At 2 months, things seemed to get a bit better. Stefan waited until 6 pm to start the wailing, and stopped usually by 11 pm. Some nights it was all those hours, sometimes just a couple. He started staying awake more during the day. Pretty soon, he started with this constant eye rubbing. It went on a few weeks, I thought they were itchy, a part of his eczema. Sean told me to mention it to the Pediatrician (Pedi), and I did, and he had nothing to offer, really. I believe that was at our 4 month visit, where we were more concerned with the milk allergy. I don't even think I mentioned his inability to get to sleep or night time fussiness, I just assumed he was being a baby. Then came the big light bulb moment: He's rubbing his eyes because he's sleepy. DUH!

I had been letting him "choose" when he took a nap. If he didn't sleep all day, I really didn't question it. "Baby knows what Baby needs", right? Well not ALL the time. I started working on getting him down 3 times a day for naps. It was hard. By the last nap, then subsequent bed time, I was so tired of putting him down, I often resorted to the baby swing. Here's why...

At the first sign of sleep- an eye rub or yawn- I hopped into a darkened, quiet room. Then I'd try to nurse, shush, and rock him to sleep. This isn't comfy rocking chair rocking. It's aggressive dipping (like dead lifts if you know weight lifting), broad swaying with lots of bouncing, lots of knee bending (I literally don't have much cartilage in one of my knees from injuries, and I tell you, sometimes it hurts like heck to rock my boy). Loud shushing accompanied- really loud. Louder than his cries. After an hour or two, he'd fall asleep. If he didn't, by the 3rd hour, I was reaching for the swing chair. With loud music playing (from the chair), and the swing set to at least a 4 (out of 6), he'd cry for a while longer, before passing out.

Sleep begets sleep. After getting him to take those naps, his temperament regarding sleep was easier. Not wonderful, but better. Once the casein (what causes the allergy to milk) was out of my and his system, things became a easier still. The first nap of the day was and is always the best, he'd go down within a 1/2 hour. The rest were steadily harder. But, at this point (4-6 months) usually took only 1 hour to put him down at night. Other times 2, occasionally more than that. But all of this was still taxing...I mean at the end of a 24 hour day, I had spent 4-6 hours trying to put Stefan to sleep. That's way too many for his age, I thought.

I jumped on my Facebook mommy circuit- and soon was getting all sorts of advice. The best gem being the exercise ball in place of standing and rocking. It was a knee saver! And it worked more times than not. Bathing before bed is also a wonderful technique that works more often than not I was also reassured that I was doing my best, it's just a phase, and we do what we need to do to get by, ie I'm not a child abuser because I resort to the swing chair to get him to sleep some nights. Reassurance is sometimes the best "advice". It really helped me regroup and refocus my efforts on wanting to parent Stefan to sleep.

Now at 6.5 months, he's doing better. In the past week, I've put him down for his first nap by simply laying him in his crib. He fussed a bit, but drifted off very easily. In the past couple of days he's gone down for the night in about 20 minutes time- that is he nurses to sleep and I take a little snooze until I know I can roll out of bed without waking him- he's in deep sleep.

I currently don't schedule naps- there are times when I break that schedule, and other times where he does. It just doesn't seem necessary or worth it now. He has created a schedule that includes a late morning, mid afternoon, and early evening nap...though he may miss one of those so it throws off the others. His patter is more awake for 2-4 hours, sleep for 1-2 until bed time. And no, he does not sleep through the night. He's a baby, who mostly breastfeeds, and nature built him so that he wakes when he's hungry. Some times that means every couple of hours, with a larger 5 hour stretch somewhere in there.

At this point, I think I'm dealing with his over active brain or body- or both. Last night, he seemed to not be able to shut off his body, though his eyes and mind certainly wanted a break. Other times, I think his crying is because, like me, I can't shut my thoughts off at night. So it's an on going thing, trying to figure out what works best, and just when I have the magical combination of rocking, singing, shushing, and nursing, something changes and I have to figure out how to revamp the process.

I plan to have the sleep enticing tricks I've used in another post...sooner than later if he doesn't wake up from this nap soon!