4 month sleep regression

Night #2 of battling with Elijah for bedtime.  I am pretty sure this is developmental.  I've read lots of things online that say right around 4 months babies often go through a sleep regression.  All of a sudden he notices the whole world around him, and there are much more interesting and fun things to do that do NOT involve sleep.  That sounds about right.  Just in the last week we've noticed a huge growth spurt in his development where he is playing with toys and interacting with the world much more.  So, I've got it diagnosed.  But I don't know how to fix it.  I have a few ideas, but I'm afraid to try any of them because if they don't work then we may end up with a night of even less sleep than we've gotten the last few nights.  But I've made a few observations that give me some clues for possible solutions.

First: he still needs to be swaddled.    We have been using the velcro SwaddleMe blankets for about 6 weeks now, and they work great.  Without them, Elijah wiggles out of his swaddle almost immediately.  He is very close to outgrowing his current blankets so I thought it was time to move up to the bigger size.  So I went to Target and bought bigger swaddle blankets.  We put him in the larger one and I think that it wasn't tight enough for him.  He got his hands up and on top of his belly.  Halfway through the night, he just wouldn't go back to sleep.  I went upstairs and his eyes were wide open in his crib.  I took him out of the large swaddle blanket, put him back in the smaller size, and he went right to sleep.  Out like a light.  So that tells me that he still needs to be swaddled.

Second: he might be outgrowing the rocking to sleep routine.  We did our usual bedtime scenario.  Daniel bounced him and shushed for a little bit, and then I took over.  After a few minutes I sat down and rocked him in the rocking chair.  It seemed like he just couldn't get comfortable.  His eyes were closed, he seemed asleep, but he was still squirming and arching his back every few minutes.  I thought he wasn't swaddled tight enough so I laid him down on the changing table.  Boom.  Asleep.  Stopped squirming, deep breathing, spit out the pacifier.  Daniel gently lifted him up and put him down in the crib and he was down for the night.  Maybe it's time to just swaddle him up and lay him down.  I think I might try that tonight.

Third: he needs to eat enough during the day so that he's not hungry at night.  I have been watching closely how much he eats, and I think he needs a good 30 oz of milk in a 24 hour period.  He usually gets 25 oz before bed, and then one bottle in the middle of the night.  I'm wondering if we dream feed him another 3-5 oz before we go to bed, if he might sleep all the way through the night.  It's worth a shot right?

There's one other strange sleep habit that has come up recently.  Elijah talks through his sleep ALL NIGHT. Last night from his wake-up around 2am all the way until he woke up at 6:30am, he made noise.  His teachers at day care noticed it too.  They said that during his naps, they thought he was awake a few times. But when they went over to pick him up, he was still asleep.  Usually, persistent noise means he's awake.  Last night after over an hour of listening to him I just figured until he starts actually crying I'm going to leave him in his crib.  Unfortunately, I couldn't go back to sleep.  I just kept waiting for him to wake up and start crying.  I put in ear plugs around 3am and that helped me sleep all the way until my alarm went off at 5:45.  So I was up from about 1:30 (when I got up to pump) until about 3.  Yuck.  But, his sleep talking is kind of a good thing.  It's training me to learn that every little noise does NOT mean he is going to wake up.  I have to learn to let him whine a little, roll over, and go back to sleep on his own.  Daniel is very good at this.  I am not.  I'm such a light sleeper, and I assume that every little noise is the beginning of him starting to wake up.  And since we've been bottle feeding him, I want to get up and warm up a bottle before he starts screaming.  (Daniel doesn't mind making him scream while he warms up the bottle).  I think ear plugs will be very helpful the next few nights.  I know I will be able to hear him crying through the ear plugs, but they are just enough to block out a little whining.

I hope this sleep regression passes.  Until then, we will need to once again re-learn how to deal with bedtime and nighttime.  As a working mom, sometimes I feel like the entire extent of my mothering happens in the middle of the night.  Which is not fun.  I am learning for myself the truth behind the statement I have heard many times from other parents: as soon as you get the hang of parenting, your child changes and you have to start all over again.

Elijah's First Christmas

I have felt an incredible need to document everything about our lives right now.  I know I am going to want to remember what our lives were like when Elijah was really little.  It will be fun to read back on this when he's older.  And maybe a good idea before I decide I'm ready to have another baby!  Of course, I have to write all about Elijah's first Christmas Day.

He woke up very early at about 5:30am.  Daniel got up with him and let me sleep in a little bit.  Elijah went back to sleep before long, and then we all got up around 7:30am.  Elijah looked adorable in his red "Ho Ho Ho" PJ's.

We opened presents while on facetime with Daniel's parents.  There was light snow falling most of the morning.  Elijah took a long nap from noon until 3pm, so I got a little nap in then too, and got to watch a movie with Daniel.  We spent most of the day just hanging out and playing with Elijah.  Daniel made ice cream with his new ice cream maker.  Elijah took another nap from 4:30-5:30 so we took that opportunity to shovel the snow off our driveway.  And he cooked a delicious roast for dinner.  Elijah sat in his bumbo seat with a few toys while we sat at the table and ate dinner.  Just over the last few days it has seemed like Elijah is going through a developmental growth spurt.  He is now grabbing toys and bringing them to his mouth.  He can almost hold his own bottle.  It's like he's noticing the whole world for the first time.  He stares at Jackson, reaches for things, and whines when we take a toy away. He is also outgrowing his pacifier quickly.  It doesn't soothe him like it used to.  He really only wants it while he's falling asleep.

The day ended disastrously.  We have him a bath, put on his PJ's, and read one of his new books that he got for Christmas.  Then we swaddled him up, and he started to cry (like usual).  But instead of calming down and drifting off to sleep, he just cried.  And cried.  And cried.  For 2 hours we tried to get him to sleep and he just wouldn't.  We tried feeding him, we unswaddled him and reswaddled him.  We tried the swing, we tried white noise and music, we turned the fan on and changed him into cooler PJ's.  Nothing worked.  At 9:00 we just put him in his crib and let him cry.  After 15 minutes we regrouped and tried again.  Daniel let me go to bed around 9:30 and he took over.  At 10:30 he came into bed and Elijah was asleep.  Daniel thought it was teething.  Elijah chewed on Daniel's fingers and after he got some tylenol, finally went to sleep.  He was up again at midnight though.  We gave him a bottle and he went back to sleep after a little while.  But all night I could hear him.  at 1:30am he made noise, but went back to sleep.  Then again at 3:00am.  And we had to be up to go to work at 6:00.  So I didn't get much sleep at all.  It was a miserable night.  The worst part is that we have no idea why it happened!  And we still don't.  Hopefully it was just an "off" night.

Today I am taking a day for me.  I called into work sick, and I'm going to stay home and sleep as much as I want.  Elijah is at day care, so I get the day all to myself.  I feel a little guilty, but also like I need this for myself.  So I am going to try to enjoy it as much as possible.  Here's a few more pictures from our Christmas:

Bedtime Successes

It may be too early to say, but I think we found a bedtime routine that works miracles.

A few nights ago, after dinner we decided to give Elijah a bath.

And then we decided now would be a good time to put his pajamas on.

And then it seemed natural to read a story.

And then he was looking a little sleepy, but not yet fussing, so we swaddled him up.

And within 10 minutes, he was asleep.  No bottle, no nursing, no hysterical crying and arching his back.
Just sleep.  At 7:30.

And the next morning, he woke up at 6:30 a happy, well-rested baby.  Oh, and did I mention- he didn't wake up once in between?!

So we have decided that this was our new bedtime routine.  It has worked beautifully.  In the past, we have just sort of waited until Elijah seemed tired and then decided it was time to put him to sleep.  Some nights this was 7:00 (which I thought was way too early) and other nights it was 9:00 (which was definitely way too late).  Most nights, by the time we decided he was ready for bed, it was too late.  He was what most people like to call overtired, but as Daniel doesn't believe that's a "thing" we'll call it cranky instead.  He would cry and thrash around in our arms.  Most of the time we ended up feeding him which calmed him down enough to fall asleep.  Occasionally Daniel would suffer through the crying for about 30 minutes while bouncing, swaying, rocking, and shushing until Elijah would eventually succumb to sleep.  By this time it was way later than we intended to put him to sleep in the first place.  But with this new plan, he is in bed by 7:30 every night.  Last night for example, he didn't really seem tired.  But we swaddled him up anyways.  I put the classical music station on the radio, and Daniel rocked him for a good 15 minutes.  His eyes were still wide open, but he was staring at the ceiling completely quiet.  So Daniel put him in his swing and he drifted off to sleep quietly on his own.  That is the miracle I'm talking about.  Since his newborn days, he has never fallen asleep anywhere but in someone's arms.

Ready for a few more miracles?  He has slept through the night every night since we instituted the new bedtime.  AND he has woken up in the morning on his own, right around the time we used to have to wake him up.  We should have done this a long time ago.

A milestone reached: Elijah's first favorite toy

I think I can officially declare, for the first time, that Elijah has his first favorite toy.  A couple nights ago Daniel and I were hanging out with Elijah for a few minutes before his bedtime.  We pulled out almost every toy Elijah has and offered them up to him briefly.  There was one that seemed to catch his attention more than all the others- a dinosaur.  I clipped it onto his car seat.  The next morning on the way to day care, he didn't cry.  Instead, he played with his dinosaur.  This morning- the same.  He grabbed onto the tail of the dinosaur (which makes a crinkling sound) and fingered the silk tags hanging off the end.  This kept his attention for pretty much the entire 25 minute drive.  I promise I watched the road too, but I couldn't help looking in the mirror a few times to glimpse Elijah playing.  I am elated that I finally found something that will keep him from crying on the commute to and from day care.  I think it is incredibly adorable the way he plays with it.  I have never seen him reach out and grasp anything so deliberately.  And I've never seen anything hold his attention for that long (except me or his Daddy).  I think this is the beginning of him being able to actually play with toys and hopefully play independently!  So maybe I won't have to spend every one of his waking moments entertaining him.

Also, last night he slept from 7:30 until we woke him up at 6:30am.  He definitely has some bad nights, but we are SO lucky that at least once a week (and often multiple times a week) he sleeps all the way through the night.  And he's been like that since he was really little.  I think the first time he slept through the night was around 6 weeks.  He never wakes up more than twice a night.  Lately, Daniel has been taking the nighttime feedings.  This has helped my fatigue and stress level so much.  I still have been getting up to pump once a night, regardless of whether Elijah wakes up or not.  I'm working really hard to increase my milk supply and it seems to be working so I'm not going to mess with it.  Today was the first day in probably 4 weeks that I've been able to provide all the milk for him without thawing any from the freezer.  I think having him sleep through the night helps with my milk too.  If he doesn't wake up, I'm not having to feed him a ton of milk all night long.

I know this is so cliche, but it's absolutely true.  No matter how exhausted I am, or how much I wish I could have a few minutes of time to myself, one smile from Elijah makes me more happy than I've ever been in my life.

The Perfect Night

Last night was the perfect night.  I left work at 4 and when I arrived at day care, Elijah was asleep.  Perfect.  Why?  Because I had about a million errands to run.  So I left him there.  I called Daniel to delegate pick-up to him, and proceeded to drive all over town completing my various tasks.  Pick up Elijah's prescription, get groceries at Costco, pick up our Christmas cards.  Elijah's teacher called me about 5pm to tell me he had woken up, and miracle of miracles- Daniel had just called me to tell me he was almost there to pick him up.  So I went home and had enough time to unload milk from the day, wash the pump parts, put away groceries, and start dinner before Daniel and Elijah arrived home around 5:30.  I fed Elijah while Daniel finished cooking dinner, and we even got to eat dinner at the table with no baby on either of our laps.  Elijah happily played in his little bouncy seat and babbled along with our conversation.  When we finished eating we gave Elijah a bath and put his jammies on.  We read 2 short picture books.  Elijah was then swaddled, and this is where I leave Daniel to do the dirty work.  I HATE bedtime.  I have no patience for crying, squirming, or any of the strategies Elijah uses to prolong sleep.  Daniel, on the other hand, doesn't mind at all.  So while he rocks Elijah to sleep I pull out clothes for the next day, pack up his things for day care, and pick up the house.  Usually this ends in me either heating up a bottle or nursing him because he won't stop crying and that's the only way to get him calmed down and asleep.  But last night, within 10 minutes Elijah was fast asleep in Daddy's arms, and then, his crib.  By 7:30 he was in bed and we actually had time to spend together before my (ridiculously early but very necessary) 8:30 bedtime.  And we spent that time watching the finale of Survivor and assembling our Christmas cards.

By the way, I am really proud of us for actually putting together Christmas cards.  I really wanted to send some out but it sounded like way too much work and I had no idea how we would find the time to do it.  This is life after baby.  

I actually did a little cheer when Elijah was in bed at 7:30.  It is SO rare that I actually get time to do anything for myself.  Especially on a week night.  And I got ONE WHOLE hour to do things that I wanted to do.  Glorious.

Side note: Elijah did wake up briefly at 8:30, then again at midnight, and again at 3am.  But you can't win 'em all, right?  :-)

Joyful weekend

This weekend was perfect.  It was relaxed time with our little family at home.  We didn't do anything particularly exciting or special.  Spending time together, just the three of us, makes me so happy.  Elijah makes me so happy.  It amazes me every day how he can smile and laugh at the simplest things.  Last night I pulled out the hand puppets. While Elijah sat on Daniel's lap, I showed him how the sheep says "baaa" and the chicken says "cluck cluck" and the horse says "neeeeiiighhh."  I repeated this over and over again.  And then I pulled out the chicken and had it say "baa."  Elijah smiled and laughed!  He thought it was so funny that the chicken said the sheep's sound.  I have no idea if he really understood, but it was so cute.  

One of my favorite parts of the day is right after Elijah wakes up from a nap.  I go into his room and unswaddle him in his crib. He lifts up his arms over his head and stretches really big, then looks at me and smiles.  I can't help but smile back.  

I also love to watch Daniel and Elijah interact.  Daniel is such a natural Daddy.  He comes up with fun games to play with Elijah all on his own.  I get so focused on making sure Elijah is fed, dressed, clean, warm, and comfortable, that I forget to just play.  But that's what Daniel is good at.  One of his favorite things to do with Elijah is joke about "Daddy kisses."  He comes home from work and if Elijah is fussing, then Daniel picks him up and says "Oh, did you not get enough Daddy kisses today?"  and then kisses him all over.  Yesterday when Daniel was changing Elijah's diaper, he kept repeating "not enough?  You want more?!" and kissing Elijah on his belly.  Elijah loved it.  

When I was pregnant, I would sit in the rocking chair in Elijah's room and look around at all the things we had accumulated and imagine using them for this tiny baby that I haven't even met.  And now I sit in his rocking chair and look around at the pacifiers lying on the dresser, blankets crumpled up in his crib, dirty clothes in the laundry, and a garbage can filled with dirty diapers.  And it's everything I wanted it to be.  And more.  Of course it's completely exhausting.  If I get 15 minutes to do something for myself (usually sleep) then it's an extraordinary day.  But when I think about leaving Elijah, even just for a couple hours, I don't want time for myself anymore.  Every minute I spend with him is precious.  

Struggle and Acceptance

The past month has been really hard.  There were many days when I thought "oh, this is what people were talking about when they said having a baby is hard."  The first 3 months of Elijah's life were pretty easy.  Even after going back to work, I felt like we had a system that worked for us.  I was getting plenty of sleep, I felt confident in my skills as a mother, and Elijah was healthy and happy.  But since our trip to Phoenix for Thanksgiving, I have been seriously struggling.  I don't think it was the trip itself that did it.  I think it was the stress of the trip, combined with some breastfeeding issues that popped up right around that time, being told by our pediatrician that his slow weight gain is a problem, many illnesses hitting our family at the same time, and Elijah hitting the 3 month milestone where he is becoming more awake, active, and demanding.  Mostly, though, it's been the breastfeeding.  All of a sudden, he didn't want to nurse anymore.  He much prefers the bottle- it's easier and faster.  Waiting for my milk to let down, and sucking to get it all out just wasn't working for him anymore.  He would suck a few times, and then when the milk didn't come immediately, he would scream until I gave up and fed him a bottle.  We were both very upset every single time I fed him.  It made me angry and resentful that I have to work, so he gets bottles, and now he prefers them.  It also made me angry that all the books have these rules about breastfeeding that are nearly impossible for someone who works outside the home to follow.  There were days when I thought we were done breastfeeding for good.  But of course the old rule about breastfeeding proved to be true.  Everything is temporary.  I persisted and eventually was able to get him to breastfeed.  Sometimes without any fussiness at all.  Last weekend he didn't get one bottle and I was so thrilled.  On Saturday morning I sat in our rocking chair in his nursery with him happily eating, and it was one of the happiest moments in the last few months.  I love nursing him, and I wasn't ready to give it up yet.  But then a problem that was much worse came up: low supply.  Since we got back from Phoenix I have been unable to pump enough milk to send to day care.  Every single day they have had to thaw at least one of my frozen bags.  And now we are getting perilously low.  At this rate, my freezer stash will be gone in another week or two.  I've added an extra pumping session in at work to try to increase my supply.  So far I haven't seen an improvement.  In fact it seems to be getting worse.  I have ended up feeding him the milk that I pumped while at work in the evening because he's still hungry.  Which leads us to another problem- sleep.  His sleeping has deteriorated drastically.  He is now up 2 or 3 times a night sometimes and it has been a struggle to get him back to sleep every time.  I nurse him until it seems like he is asleep.  Then as soon as I try to put him down he wakes up and ends up screaming.  We have been up for over an hour some nights trying to get him back to sleep.  I think it is tied to feeding issues.  Before he was getting enough milk during the day that he could sleep all night.  Now my supply has dropped and he has to eat at night to make up for the lost calories during the day.  I am so sleep deprived I am desperate for bed by 8:00 at night.  And even then it's not enough.  I think I was almost starving Elijah because I was trying to hang onto the milk in the fridge to send to day care.  But now I've realized I have to feed him as much as he wants or else I will be up all night making up for it.  

All of these issues have made for a very stressful and anxious few weeks.  Every day has become a struggle to make sure he is fed, breastfeeding, sleeping, gaining weight, not spitting up, etc.  When I fight with him to breastfeed, and fight with him to go to sleep, there isn't much time left to just play.  So about a week ago I decided that I had to change something.  I gave up trying to conserve my milk.  I tried some new tactics to get him to breastfeed that have worked miracles- he is back nursing happily.  And it has made a difference.  He is sleeping a little bit better.  About once a week he will sleep through the night completely.  We have at least an hour of happy play time each evening and that's usually enough to remind me how much I love Elijah and that this is all worth it.  But the rest is just really hard.  In the last few days I have begun to accept the fact that I will have to feed him formula.  I can't supply enough milk for another 3 months until he starts solid foods. And as I have begun to accept that, a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  There are moments when all this worrying seems so ridiculous.  He is happy and healthy.  Even though I don't get enough sleep and every minute of my day is consumed by chores and obligations, Elijah is happy and healthy and that's all that is important. Formula is not poison- it is perfectly good food.  And Elijah has already gotten over 3 months of breast milk.  I have done everything possible to give him what I believe is best for him.  I know that I have never tried harder at anything in my life.  That makes me proud and allows me to give myself permission to let it go.  Daniel agrees.  He believes that my mental health is suffering and that the benefit of continuing to struggle with breastfeeding doesn't outweigh the cost of my well-being.  I think I'm making him miserable with my worrying and anxiety and pressure I put on myself.  So I have made a decision to let it all go.  Everyone's happiness depends on my ability to calm down and regain my confidence as a mother.  I'm well on my way there.