Infant Sleep: 4 month regression (Wakeful Period)

So last I left you, we had ourselves a STTNer. And we did, consistently from Feb 13 – March 7, A slept from 7-7 (give or take 30 minutes).

His nighttime routine consists of: bath, diaper, lotion/massage, (sometimes) story, nursing, burp, crib/sleep.

Then BAM, out of nowhere last Thursday, A had a nighttime waking.

Actually, when I heard him crying on the monitor, I thought he had startled himself and was  up a half hour early (630am) from his normal wake time. He normally doesn’t cry in the AM. So I went over to the nursery, grabbed him, brought him to bed to nurse, was confused because my boobs didn’t feel full, then checked my phone to realize that it was actually only 130am!!!!!! WHAT A SHOCKER.

After I inadvertently nursed him, I put him back to sleep in his crib and he subsequently woke up at 330 and 5am. DREAD. I nursed him both times and woke up completely exhausted and confused. Then as I woke up out of my groggy state, I knew immediately that this was probably the 4 month regression that I had often heard about from mamas and online parenting boards.

A has always hit most of his growth spurts earlier than average wks, so I wasn’t surprised when he’d hit this at just around 3.5 months/15 weeks.

I frantically googled, twittered, hellobeed — and was bewildered that there wasn’t an answer. Even though most baby-related things are definitely custom to each individual baby, there were usually guidelines, books, and just a plethora of information on the web. Nope, not on sleep regressions. While I read thoroughly on what they were, how wonder weeks are associated to them, etc. I couldn’t find anything about a cure!

Aside from “time/this too shall pass/he’ll grow out of it,” the only resolution that most parents choose is to sleep-train if/when regression hits. However, this didn’t apply to us. A has always been good at putting himself to sleep and staying asleep. We’d also night-weaned.

Boy, was I confused as to what to do–

And so for the first time in my 3.5 months of motherhood, I left it up to the sleep gods, said a quick prayer each night (seriously) and hoped that we would be lucky enough for him to grow out of it (and quickly!)

We still kept up his normal bedtime routine and put him to bed at the same time (7/730) or earlier, even through Daylight Savings Time.

This is what A’s sleep has looked since last Thursday night:

Thursday – down at 730pm, awake at 130am (nursed), awake at 330am (nursed), awake at 530am (nursed)

Friday – down at 730pm, awake at 3am (pacied), awake at 500am (pacied), awake at 7am (nursed) (up for the day)

Saturday – down at 7pm, awake at at 545am (new time, so tech 445am)  (nursed)

Sunday – down at 730pm, awake at 4am (pacied), awake at 7am (nursed) (up for the day)

Monday – down at 7pm, awake at 520am (nursed)

Tuesday – down at 7pm, awake at 650am (nursed) (up for the day)

I’ll let you know how the rest of this week goes, but it’s gradually gotten better and back to his normal sleep routine. Let me also add, that during this past week, his naps haven’t been affected by the regression. A’s not a great napper and we’ve never pushed since he sleeps so well at night. Usually takes 1 long nap and several catnaps (30-45 min) throughout the day, most days. The days that aren’t marked with an “up for the day,” usually meant that I nursed him on both sides and made him sleep longer in bed with me (at least until the sun was up).

I don’t have any tricks or secrets. I do know that I’m glad we stuck to our routine and didn’t change his bedtime routine or time. I’m also glad that after the first night of fluke nursing, I was able to use the paci to get him back down to sleep. And it wasn’t just popping in a paci and him magically falling back asleep. It usually took at least five minutes for him to take the paci and sometimes we’d pat/shush him back to lala-land. He wasn’t ever hungry, but more alert and fidgety with his hands. I didn’t want to get stuck in night nursing again and am so grateful that A didn’t let his sleep regression hinder his eating schedule. (5-6 times a day/25-30 oz. daily)

So here’s to hoping that last night’s trend keeps going and we get settled back to our regular sleep schedule.

 

Infant Sleep: An Update

I left off at two nights into night weaning/crib transition, etc.

As a refresher:

February 12 (Night 1): down at 740pm, paci at 1130pm, paci at 130am, nurse at 310am, nurse at 740am

February 13 (Night 2): down at 720pm, paci at 1am, paci at 345am, ???

The rest of that second night was okay. He woke up at 6am to be pacied back down until 8am when he was up for the day.

On night 3, February 14 – Mr.Dubs offered as a Valentine’s gift to get up for night wakings. Since I wasn’t nursing him at night, Mr.Dubs was planning on doing what I’d been doing the two nights prior. Going into A’s room and giving him a paci until he fell back asleep, etc. We both went to bed that night around 1030. I slept peacefully knowing that Mr.Dubs was on night-duty. And before I knew it, it was 6am and Mr.Dubs tapped on my shoulder worriedly telling me to check the monitor. HE HADN’T GOTTEN UP ONCE since 1am. Apparently, 1am rolled around and Mr.Dubs heard A stirring, but as soon as he got to the nursery, he was back asleep. HALLLLLELUJAH. Mr.Dubs and I fell back asleep after ten minutes of staring at our baby sleeping soundly at 6am, and we all slept until 9am. NINE AM!!! 13+ hours!!!!!

Night 4 was Mr.Dubs and my first night away from the baby. And what an angel he was, sleeping through the night for the first time the night before to calm my worries about being away. Since his first STTN, Austin has been consistently going to sleep around 730/8 and sleeping until 8am+. The only reason his wake time is now 715am is because I am back at work and I wake him up for his morning nursing session before I head into the office.

His naps are still hit or miss. On our new routine, we usually get 1 long nap in the morning and then a few catnaps throughout the day before we start his bedtime routine around 630pm. On the days I’m in the office, I get sad because I only have two hours with him after I get home, but I am not about to mess with a good thing!

While weeks 6-11 were hard to get through night wakings, reswaddling, etc. it was all worth it to have Austin sleeping unswaddled and for 12 hours straight consistently. I hope it lasts! At least until next month when the 4 month regression hits!

THANK YOU SLEEP GODS. THANK YOU X100000000000000000000.

Breastfeeding: My Experience

Breast is best!

When I became pregnant one of my biggest fears was not being able to breastfeed. My mom wasn’t able to breastfeed and neither did 90% of all of my female relatives. Whether it was physical issues or docs/hospitals pushing formula, breastfeeding isn’t in my biology. I’m not sure if it’s genetically linked at all, but with no one to rely on for advice or information, I didn’t get my hopes up that I’d be able to breastfeed our son.

I was luckily able to have immediate skin-to-skin time with Austin. He even latched on really quickly. However, as a first time mom with a “go with the flow” (haha no pun intended) attitude when it came to all things motherhood, I didn’t really know what to expect in those first few days. I heard about things like mastitis, thrush, etc. But, didn’t really know what they meant. I didn’t even know the details about “milk coming in,” and just assumed that if I was meant to breastfeed it would just happen magically as soon as Austin was born.

The first few days at home (we only stayed one day in the hospital), Mr.Dubs and I were super confused because we couldn’t “see” the colostrum and I learned that my milk hadn’t come in yet. A few days later, we were told at Austin’s newborn check that he’d lost 10+ oz in two days. I was a sobbing mess. I felt like a failure of a mom when I had to give him that first bottle of formula. (In hindsight, I realize this is absolutely ridiculous and I was doing the right thing by nourishing my newborn baby with any food source possible!)

For days 3-5, we nursed to get my milk to come in and formula-fed to make sure he was gaining weight. I cried a lot those days. Both for happy and sad reasons. Let’s be honest, it wasn’t just breastfeeding, anything and everything was making me cry every other hour during those days.

On day 5-6, my milk slowly started to come in. I spent 24 hours with rock hard breasts (bozongas – as Mr.Dubs liked to call them), frantically trying to manually squeeze out milk and then finally asking mama friends and Nancy H. – super nurse for advice on how to get the edema swelling down enough to get milk. After a few bags frozen veggies, Mr.Dubs’ massages, and some sleep — I was able to feel my breasts softening and producing milk.

The only other hiccup we ran into was a day of getting Austin to relatch on my breasts. It wasn’t full-on nipple confusion, but he definitely had a day of preferring the bottle after being formula fed (and pacied) for a couple days.

That second week I spent arduously trying to figure out our breastfeeding groove. I said no to all bottles and pacis and fed him on demand. Even though I felt like a cow every hour and it was emotionally draining, I stuck with it to make sure that Austin wouldn’t have nipple confusion with nursing.

Since then, breastfeeding has been an easy ride for us both. We were lucky enough to not have any major issues and when I re-introduced the paci and bottles in the following weeks, Austin did wonderfully. He hasn’t had any issues with the bottle and I’m still able to enjoy our nursing sessions, especially now that I’m back at work a few days a week.

It’s the perfect balance of pumping and nursing and I couldn’t have asked for a better first time breastfeeding experience.

Infant Sleep (Or Lack Thereof)

As a first time mom, one of the baby topics that I became obsessed with in the past few months is infant sleep. Albeit, it’s only been 3 months, we’ve been through ups and downs and our share of trials and tribulations. So before my half-existant short term memory fails me, I wanted to jot down our infant sleep experience thus far.

Month 1

Along with everything else throughout pregnancy and motherhood, I took a hands-off, ‘go with the flow’ attitude. The first couple of weeks were just endless cycles of newborn sleep. Austin would wake every 2-3 hours to nurse, diaper change, etc. Honestly, those first few days/weeks are such a blur that I can’t even remember where he consistently slept. It was at random, wherever he fell asleep. Sometimes he’d fight going down for the night and we would have to hold/rock/etc. him until he fell asleep. On top of that bad habit, we got into co-sleeping on the couch and Austin would sleep on the Boppy Newborn Lounger. (Tsk, tsk – I know, but it worked for us.) Also, we didn’t swaddle Austin regularly after the first week or two because he slept fine without it and honestly didn’t seem to enjoy or need the confinement.

Lastly, my mom stayed with us the first month. The first week she stayed with us full-time. Then the following weeks, she went to work from our place. Mr.Dubs and I were spoiled when it came to sleep. Once my milk came in, she frequently took on night duty with a pumped bottle. After the newborn sleep phase passed, Austin was sort of in a routine of sleeping from 10/11pm – 3/4am. His naps were still in 2-3 hour range during this time as well.

Month 2

At six weeks, Austin outgrew the newborn lounger, and I bit the bullet and moved him to the crib (when my mom would stay over) and pack&play in our room cold turkey. I didn’t even think about his growth spurt milestone and associated cluster feeding sessions. By this time, Mr.Dubs was back at work and my mom had also gone back home, so I was mostly on night duty alone. Needless to say we went through a few weeks of horrible sleep. It was a trial and error type of situation and in order to get through this transition I started swaddling him again. I bought the miracle blanket (didn’t work for us), halo sleepsacks with swaddle, and watched many youtube swaddling videos. While he did well with being reswaddled after a couple of days, it is when Austin regressed back to 3-4 hour stretches and inconsistent sleep. Sometimes we’d get random 6-8 hour stretches, but nothing consistent. I just went with the flow. I slowly started tracking his daytime naps and was grateful that however inconsistent the # of hours he slept at night were, I could always count on Austin having one nighttime feeding and going down each night at 8/9pm.

Month 3

As I found my groove and the eat, play, sleep daytime cycle fell into place, Austin’s nighttime routine kind of fell into place too. Although he still wasn’t sleeping through the night, I was able to figure out expected wake times, etc. We kind of inadvertently fell into a bedtime routine. Bath, lotion/groom, nurse, burp/dipe change if needed, sleep.

This is the month that I went crazy on researching sleep training, etc. I had no idea what sleep training meant and just associated it with getting an infant to sleep through the night (10+ hours). It literally wasn’t until last week (11 weeks) that I realized how lucky we are that Austin is great at falling asleep on his own. The rocking to sleep days during his newborn phase didn’t stick and we’ve never (knock on wood) had to hold him to fall asleep. Aside from his naps being in the bouncer or swing during month 2, we always put Austin down awake or drowsy and he’d be out within minutes. I think the key role that helped us with this (aside from my not knowing any better) was the ‘eat play sleep’ routine + baby connect app that gives me his awake cycles and paying attention to his sleepy cues.

Austin’s sleep cycle this month fell into a 830pm sleep, 230am nurse, 8am wake for the day routine. My body learned to function on 3-4 hour stretches of sleep and even Mr.Dubs who is a light sleeper was able to go to work on this sleep routine too. But, alas, just as I thought we were well on our way to STTN, week 11 came at us with a vengeance and threw us for a loop. Our consistent 1x nursing session at 230 turned to random wake ups at 11pm, midnight, 1am, etc. depending on the night. I tried every trick in the sleep books. Putting him to bed earlier (fail), Cluster feeding (fail), Topping his last nursing session off with a bottle (fail), etc.

On a night that he randomly woke up at 1am, I was so frustrated with the unpredictable wakeups that I decided to try the last trick I could think of; unswaddling him after 6 weeks of having gotten him re-used to the swaddle. And what do you know, BRAVO! VOILA! MAGIC! For the past week, Austin has been sleeping/napping unswaddled! His wakes have still been random and I did a mix of paci/nursing, but this past weekend we were out of town (and I was so fearful that he’d regress) Austin slept 7 hour stretches and even went down earlier at 730pm. In fact, I noticed that he wasn’t even really awake during his nighttime waking(s). He was fidgety, but didn’t cry, and I only nursed him out of my own habit and because I was so engorged. On our drive back home I told Mr.Dubs that I was ready to try having Austin sleep in his own room. Since this is my last week of maternity leave and Mr.Dubs is off on vacation, it was perfect timing for us.

February 12 (Night 1): down at 740pm, paci at 1130pm, paci at 130am, nurse at 310am, nurse at 740am

February 13 (Night 2): down at 720pm, paci at 1am, paci at 345am, ???

And now on night 2 of Austin sleeping in his crib in his own room, I am sitting here at 4 am typing this sleep blog post, amazed that he is still sleeping and I’ve yet to feed him.

On a sour note, during week 10, Austin’s naps hit the cat nap phase. And even now at 12 weeks, he is only sleeping 30-45 minutes. Sometimes we get a random 1 hour+ nap if I am out with him running errands or on a rare occasion in the swing. So, nap training is next on my priority. But, I’ll take any victory I can get at this point.

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I know I’ve kind of just rambled off, but this has been our experience with infant sleep. We’re lucky that Austin falls asleep on his own and doesn’t yet hate the paci. If I’ve learned anything about infant sleep it’s that nothing is predictable and just when you think you’ve hit your pattern, you’ll end up with two days of shitty sleep. I guess that’s just how it goes right now. And I’m thankful for the consistencies we do have in our fight for sleep! I’ll report back soon on how this night weaning phase turns out!

Mute Mondays: Halloween Costumes!

All Images c/o Carter’s