Since he was born, A has been sleeping in our room. He slept in a pack n play for a while. Then, for a while, he slept with us. Then, back into the pack n play. Last week, we decided to move him into a crib in the same room as K. I thought that it would be a rough transition for A. He’s always been a baby who needed to be close to Jason and to myself. I figured it would take two good weeks before we could tell how things were going. Well, he surprised us. After a couple initial struggles, he has done just wonderfully. He nurses. Then, Jason takes him to bed where he lays down and falls asleep. K has been struggling with the transition more though. Unfortunately, I think this came at a bad time for him. He’s also at a stage where he’s kind of ready to start potty learning. He’s not able to get through the day without a nap, but if he does take a nap, then he struggles to fall asleep. I think that having both of those things to deal with and this transition of A moving into his room has been tough on him. Poor guy. I’ve been trying to give him some extra love and mommy time. He has ramped his nursing up, too. Now, I just have to laugh at my worries a few months ago that he wouldn’t still be nursing at 3. I think he nursed 5 or 6 times yesterday, and 3 or 4 today. Sometimes, I wonder if A will wean before K.

Yuck. I do not like those transitions. Going from three naps to two didn’t seem to be too tough. Going from two down to one is not pretty at our house. Lately, A has been fighting his morning nap. He used to go down okay, and then about three hours later, he’d take his afternoon nap. Well, in the last week, the morning nap has become a struggle. So, for the past few days, we have tried to go without it. Neither option is great. Today, A had a 8 minute nap on the way to town to get gas and go to the library. Then, he was pretty sleepy during lunch, so I laid him down thinking that he should sleep for at least an hour or two. Well, after forty-five minutes, he was up. I tried to help him go back to sleep, but he didn’t think that was a good idea. So, right now, we’re at 12 months old, awake from 7am to 7 or 8pm, and 1 hr of sleep give or take 10 minutes. Maybe tomorrow will be better?
I keep trying to remind myself not to get too frustrated, because as with anything else at this age, it’s a phase and it can change overnight. Hopefully tonight is that night!

I think it’s been pretty obvious in previous posts that A has not made it a priority to spend any great amount of time asleep either at naptime or at night. In fact, there have been times when I’ve wondered if even as a teenager he would be waking ever hour or two for something. I know that’s not going to happen, but sometimes it’s hard to see further ahead than the next day or week or month.

So, in a (successful) effort to get more sleep, we decided that we would start sleeping with A in our bed. There were definitely mixed reviews on our decision, although we weren’t really asking for others’ opinions. We heard things like “Oh, do you really want to start that?” “That will be a hard habit to break.” “Oh, you should get so much more sleep that way!” and a few other variations of those sentiments. After about six months, I ended up sleeping on the couch for several days while I suffered through some pretty annoying allergies. A slept in his bassinet in our room for those nights and seemed to do better than he had been in our bed, so we went with his cues and kept him in there.

Because we were a sleep sharing family, I have been reading other people’s thoughts on co-sleeping and sleep sharing with a different point of view lately. I have been noticing that there are usually a few people in any discussion or debate on this topic who offer the “I knew someone who slept with their children, and now they are four and seven and still can’t sleep well” point of view. Hoping that wouldn’t be me, I got stuck thinking about it over and over.

One day, I realized something. Many parents who sleep with their children, don’t set out to have that happen. I think a lot of parents visualize a child coming home from the hospital, sleeping in the bassinet for a couple weeks or months, and then sleeping in their room after that. That’s what I thought would happen. It did not. So, many parents who sleep with their children start out doing so because their children are not great sleepers. They sleep with them because it’s the only way anyone gets any sleep. They have a family bed for a while, then eventually, the child goes on to sleep in their own crib or bed. Will this child suddenly become a great sleeper? Probably not. Will they still struggle getting to sleep or staying to sleep? Maybe. Will they be a “bad” sleeper? Possibly. Will the fact that they are not a good sleeper or some may even say bad be because they shared a bed with their parents for a couple weeks or months? No, not in my opinion.

Well, I did the elimination diet for a few days, and I saw no results. I ate only chicken and rice. To be honest, I don’t even really like chicken all that well (unless it’s a spicy chicken sandwich from Wendy’s with mayo on it), and now the thought of that chicken makes me a little queasy. Yuck.

So, fortunately, it appears that A does not have food allergies (other than the previously mentioned dairy allergy or sensitivity). This means he won’t have to spend his life analyzing every bite that enters his mouth and wondering if he is going to have reaction or if it will be okay. I won’t have to dress him in a shirt that say, “I have severe food allergies. Please ask my mommy before you give me any food” at family gatherings.

Unfortunately, we really don’t have any leads on the fussiness, restlessness, or lack of sleep. I feel like I’m walking a line. On one hand, if there’s something that is wrong and bothering him, I want to know. On the other hand, if he’s simply not a good sleeper, and he never will be, I hate to drag him from one appointment to another, from one diet to another, and from one technique to another. I guess I have to decide at what point I just need to sit back and be okay with not knowing why he doesn’t sleep and why he cries. That’s a hard thing for a mom though.

When I started NaBloPoMo, I was a sporadic blogger at best. At worst, I sometimes let my blog go for *cough* months *cough cough* without writing anything. After NaBloPoMo, I was pretty energized as far as blogging goes. I saw how quickly and easily I could put something up. I liked the feedback I got from comments and friends and family. What could stop me from blogging 20+ times a month, right?

My son.

I’m not trying to say that in a mean way. He is simply a high needs baby, and he takes a lot of time and energy to parent. If you’ve read my previous blogs, you know that I’ve been dealing with a dairy sensitivity and some sleep issues. Well, we are still dealing with the dairy sensitivity and sleep issues. I have tried a few times to introduce dairy back into my diet with the same results each time. A cries and screams while arching his back for 30-45 minutes. Not worth it. The sleep issues have changed a bit though. When A was younger, I was often up with him for 30, 45, 60, or 90 minutes while he was figuring out that night just isn’t the time to be up and play. Thankfully he seems to have realized that night isn’t a good time to play and be up. He has, however, gone from waking 2-4 times a night to waking 7 times or more.

In talking with some other mom friends of mine, they suggested that since he has a dairy sensitivity, he may also have other sensitivities that affect his sleep. For a few months now, I’ve considered this and ignored the possibility. I finally decided to do something about it. Unfortunately for me, that something is the Elimination Diet. So, for the past 2 days, I’ve eaten nothing but chicken and jasmine rice. I’ve had nothing but water to drink. My mom friends told me that if this was going to be something that worked for A, I would notice results in 1-3 days. Well, last night, we did not notice any results. I’m hoping for some sort of change tonight.

In all the information that I read about the elimination diet, I have read that it takes up to two weeks for it to work. To be honest, I don’t know if I can do chicken and rice only for two weeks. I don’t love chicken, and I’m starting to hate rice (well, not hate). I am not really sure what to do, though. I can’t keep getting up with him five or more times a night (Jason usually gets up the other 2-3) and parenting both him and K during the day, but I also don’t know if I can survive while tandem nursing if all I’m eating is rice and chicken. It doesn’t seem healthy for long term nutrition.

So, that’s mostly why I haven’t been all that active on my blog. Hopefully, I will be able to increase my posting frequency as A gets older, starts solids in the next month or two, and gives me some cute funny stories to post.

I happen to agree with this post quite strongly, but I know that there are others who disagree just as strongly as I agree. Anyway, I find it good food for though, probably because I like what she’s saying.

This year for Thanksgiving, we went to my in-laws’ house. It was a lot of fun, and I love spending time there. On Thursday, it was our family (4), Jason’s parents (2), his older sister and her family (3), and his brother and his family (5). So, in one house we had 8 adults and 6 kids and a new puppy. It was definitely a loud, energetic day. We stayed overnight and yesterday Jason’s younger sister and her family (5) came over, so there was 10 adults and 9 kids and a new puppy in the house.

When we’re there, there is so much going on and K doesn’t take good naps. He plays well while we’re there, but as we were leaving I noticed that he had circles under his eyes. We got home tonight and he was pretty tired. We put him to bed at 7, and we haven’t heard from him since. Now, I’ll say again that I had a very good time and I love seeing Jason’s family, but I’m not sure exactly what I did that made me so tired, but I fell asleep in the car on the way home and did the head bob for at least 25 miles.

*yawn* Both boys are in bed, and I’m thinking it might be time to join them.

I need to know how to get my baby to go back to sleep after he wakes to nurse at 2am! He’s done this now off and on since he was a couple weeks old. He’ll go to bed, sleep a few hours, and wake up to eat. I keep the light off, take him to the nursing chair, nurse him without looking or talking to him, don’t change his diaper unless he’s dirty, and swaddle him. Then, when he’s done nursing he’s either happy as a clam and wanting to hang out for a couple hours, or he’s fussy and fighting sleep for a couple hours (like last night).

He’s 3 1/2 months old, so I know he needs to wake and nurse, but I can’t figure out what to do differently to show him that it’s night and he should be going back to sleep after he eats! It’s not every night, and as far as I can tell there are no indicators ahead of time to tell me if he’ll go back down right away or not. He also don’t sleep well during the day. He takes 4ish 30-45 minute naps throughout the day. I don’t think that’s too much. There are sometimes when I will lay down with him and he’ll sleep for 1 1/2 or 2 hours, but that doesn’t necessarily help or hurt his night sleeping either.

Last night, I fed him, burped him, rocked him, swaddled him, walked, bounced, and cried (yes, I cried, too). Finally after being up close to 2 hours, I got him to sleep, or so I though. I laid him down and he woke up immediately and started crying. Jason got up with him and walked, cuddled, rocked, shushed, and held him for about another 40 minutes before he finally crashed. Poor baby.

Comments are open to anyone with any ideas!

Sleepless in North Dakota.