Rock-a-bye baby...

Sooo let's talk sleep and babies. Or rather lack of sleep!

From the get go, I expected that with parenthood comes a certain level of sleep deprivation. I was pleasantly surprised though when we were blessed with a great sleeper. Jackson's first week was a little rough. He pretty much ate every two hours around the clock. But after that first week he settled into a rather nice sleep pattern. He would sleep 4-5 hours straight, wake up and eat, and sleep for another 2-3 hours, eat again, and then another 2-3 hours. I was able to get plenty of sleep. He was in a bassinet right beside my bed so it was nothing for me to scoop him up, nurse him, and put him back down.

When he hit 3 months it got even better-- he started giving us 5-6 hours at first. Amaaaaazing! He outgrew his bassinet but I wasn't ready for him to be in his own room so we moved the pack n play in our room.

Then came 4 months and all that glorious sleep ended. I guess it was teething but he started waking up every 3hrs. That was tough but I could still get him back to sleep after nursing him for a minute or two.

Now here recently at 5 months it got even worse. He was up every 1.5-3hrs and I could easily get him back to sleep but could NOT put him down. He would instantly wake up and start crying. We tried the pack n play and his crib both. I tried and my husband tried. But to no avail. After doing a bit if research it seems that he is developing some separation anxiety. That combined with still teething makes for a lot of waking and tears. Finally after several days with basically no sleep (until he woke up at 4-5 and I put him in bed with me) at 2am I put him in bed with us and guess what we BOTH slept straight through till 6.

I was never comfortable with the idea of bed sharing co sleeping. But we realized that unless we just let Jackson cry it out (which neither of us believe in that method and not to mention I just flat can't do that!) this was the only way we were going to get any sleep!

So we made the decision to part time cosleep with our son. For now at least, until I feel comfortable with sleep training him and finding a gentle method that will work for us. Our plan is that every evening he goes through his bedtime routine which starts about 7-- he has his cereal, a bath if its a bath night, playtime with daddy, some diaper free playtime, get pjs on, reading a story, nursing, then rocking him to sleep if he doesn't fall asleep while nursing which he usually does. Then I put him down in his crib. He will usually sleep 2-3 hrs there. Sometimes I will go to bed early right then and most of the time that gives hubby and I some downtime together. Then when he wakes up (like I said usually 2-3hrs later) I first try to get him back to sleep and put him back in his crib (we have yet to be successful there! Lol) but then if there is no doing, instead of fighting for hours I just bring him to bed with us. Last night he slept from 12-5. He stirred once around 2 and I just nursed him side lying and we both fell back asleep.

So far it turns out that this is working rather well for us. We are all able to get some decent sleep.

The only thing that would make it better is if we had a king size bed...