SoulBaby will now sleep for several hours through the night, but getting him into bed is the most challenging task I face all day. Every once in awhile he will go to sleep peacefully and I can rush for a couple hours to get a few tasks done before I too must retire. It seems that the norm is more often that he goes down for and hour or so and then pops back up ready to go again.
I have set an optimal (according to me) routine bedtime for him every night - bathing him, reading to him and massaging him just as the Johnson & Johnson site says to do to relax your child. Now I have not used their line of calming products which I am sure would add benefit to their claims of ensuring a good night's sleep with their simple nighttime steps, but I have plenty of good lotion and it that really going to make him sleep better? I have read countless child books, blogs, and message boards to search for something new, one small helpful piece of advice that can win me some extra time everyday.
Still, I have put him down three times already tonight and as I write this now he is twitching in his sleep – the first indication he is faking it and will soon be up again. The doctor says he’s a baby and I can’t expect him to cooperate. The books say he should be sleeping regularly now, or at least in a routine. My mom says he is just so social and thinks he is going to miss out on something if he falls asleep.
I am going to let him choose his own sleep path and see what happens because really, I am just tired of fighting to get him to sleep. I hope I am not setting my child up for afternoon kindergarten and an inability to wake up before 8 in the morning, but right now I am so tired I just can’t be bothered to worry that far ahead.
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When I first had SoulBaby he was in the NICU for several days due to some breathing problems and a fever. I remember one of the nurses in there was talking to us about how at first you are so worried about everything with your child, continuously checking to see if they are breathing while they are sleeping and whatnot. Having not had my son at home all to myself, I could not yet imagine this behavior.
When he finally did come home, the first night was the second most shocking experience I had had to date, only topped by the delivery nearly a week earlier. I never knew that a newborn made such irregular, phlegmy and overall unhealthy sounding breaths. And I never knew the kind of pain and concern that his non-stop cry would shock through my body. It was not a physical pain like the labor, but a mental anguish that affected every ounce of my body when I heard his shrill, scared cry.
I think we woke every hour or two to strange gurgling noises in the night for the first week. We became accustomed to the sounds and did not have to worry whether or not he was breathing in the night because we could easily hear him sleeping in the bassinet next to our bed. Finally, he quieted and then we graduated to watching the rise of his chest by the light of the nightlight. Ahhh, yes he is still breathing, and we rest again.
Slowly we became more comfortable. He started taking longer naps and sleeping more at night, leaving me alone in the house with him more, but not with him. At least once a day, I look around and wonder where he is, and then, yes he is still napping, I remember. I have been here with him almost every moment for four months and now it is weird to be awake so many hours in a row undisturbed by baby’s needs. So I have to go check on him now.
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