Sleep, baby, sleep
Sooo I'm sure my attachment parenting, co-sleeping friends will be all overcome with smug smiles and self-satisfaction when I say this, but I am pretty convinced that my kid just doesn't dig sleeping in his crib. He just doesn't seem to sleep for terribly long stretches of time in there. What gives? Is this payback for the weeks I spent fretting during his first three months when he seemed to sleep all the time? Am I just projecting my own crib angst onto him? Is he merely being his inscrutable baby self and wouldn't sleep any better no matter where he was? Who knows. All I know is that he doesn't sleep like he used to. Like tonight, he finally went down at about 9:15 and started screaming in his sleep around 10:25. It's chilly tonight--the Africa-hot weather has departed and left us with 50s temps at night--so we put a blanket sleeper on him and he nursed and then went back to sleep. And then just now--hollering again.
The only reason I attribute this new no-sleeping jag to the crib is because he will often take 2-hour naps if he is sleeping on me. Not--and I'm saying this for the benefit of the co-sleeping gurus mentioned earlier--next to me. Oh, no, that won't do--he must be ON me. Even in 90 degree weather. Heck, especially in 90 degree weather, which makes me feel like an aging relative's couch, all covered in plastic with a small sweaty body stuck to me. I just don't get it. I mean, I'm flattered and all, but we're getting to the point where I may not have, say, 2 hours to just hang out being the kiddo's human mattress. At some point, I'm going to have to write my dissertation and stuff.
So...do you have any ideas? We usually bring him into bed with us around 5-6AM, at which point he (sometimes) sleeps (marginally) better, but the fact that we have only a double bed and a gi-normous baby means this arrangement can't last forever (we've even thought of getting a bigger bed, but 50s-era apartments were not built to accomodate king-sized anything. I don't even think they anticipated double beds--this apartment must have been built with the old Lucy-and-Ricky twin-bed arrangement in mind). As it is, he and I usually 'share' (and I use this term loosely) my half of the bed, which is to say he gets the middle and I have about 5 inches on either side of him. Which will be great once I learn how to zip off the right half of my body.
So I'm open to new options. The only thing I absolutely cannot do is let him cry it out. I wouldn't sleep for a week after that kind of trauma.
The only reason I attribute this new no-sleeping jag to the crib is because he will often take 2-hour naps if he is sleeping on me. Not--and I'm saying this for the benefit of the co-sleeping gurus mentioned earlier--next to me. Oh, no, that won't do--he must be ON me. Even in 90 degree weather. Heck, especially in 90 degree weather, which makes me feel like an aging relative's couch, all covered in plastic with a small sweaty body stuck to me. I just don't get it. I mean, I'm flattered and all, but we're getting to the point where I may not have, say, 2 hours to just hang out being the kiddo's human mattress. At some point, I'm going to have to write my dissertation and stuff.
So...do you have any ideas? We usually bring him into bed with us around 5-6AM, at which point he (sometimes) sleeps (marginally) better, but the fact that we have only a double bed and a gi-normous baby means this arrangement can't last forever (we've even thought of getting a bigger bed, but 50s-era apartments were not built to accomodate king-sized anything. I don't even think they anticipated double beds--this apartment must have been built with the old Lucy-and-Ricky twin-bed arrangement in mind). As it is, he and I usually 'share' (and I use this term loosely) my half of the bed, which is to say he gets the middle and I have about 5 inches on either side of him. Which will be great once I learn how to zip off the right half of my body.
So I'm open to new options. The only thing I absolutely cannot do is let him cry it out. I wouldn't sleep for a week after that kind of trauma.
posted by the stefanie formerly known as stefanierj at 11:46 PM
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