January 14, 2014

The Saga of Sleep




Those of you that have young children or have had them in the past you know what I mean about the saga of sleep.

Tau’aho is nearing 6 months and his sleeping habits have evolved over time. When he was just an infant he slept most of the time (to his cousins’ dismay). The older he gets, the more he is awake and his naps are shorter. We had it down that he was sleeping in his crib for the entire night—if he woke up because he was hungry, he would eat and then go right back to sleep.

THEN…

Then we went on a holiday to Utah, then Hawaii, then Utah again—his time zone, sleep patterns, and entire world was thrown into chaos. Not to mention and his first two teeth showed up two days before the New Years. He became more needy and weepy—something unusual for him. He also hit the phase where he understands that the ‘other’ faces are not his mum’s face.

Once we came home he would only sleep if we were holding him or sleeping next to him. MAN! In order to get some sleep ourselves for a few nights he just slept with us.

After one hour of sleep then two hours awake for two nights in a row Lady has decided that if he is not going to sleep with us pampering him we will just put him in his bed and if he cries for a bit he will survive…it may break his mum’s heart to hear him cry, but we need that routine back.

It is hard to be frustrated with the happy little man when he just wants to sing and talk at 0200H. Its just that the rest of the day both Lady and I are dragging. Lady is amazing, most of the time she gets up with him. I am so thankful for them.

So the saga continues...

2 comments:

  1. Sleeping is one of the roughest areas for me when it comes to babies. I want them to sleep and I would do anything to make that happen because I am like a zombie for the first few months or in the case of Jaylee- almost the whole first year. Letting the baby cry it out does break my heart every time we have had to do it with our kids but honestly, it is for the best to let the baby learn to self-soothe and put themselves to sleep. It helps the parents out a lot in the long run too. I have had friends that it takes them over an hour to put their kid to bed, and that was including if they woke up in the middle of the night too. Madness I say. I read a book with my kids that helped me learn some great habit's to form with my kids. It is "BabyWise". I mainly just liked the way the book taught scheduling because I feel that babies need that so they know what to expect. Anyways, I hope all goes well. I know I shed tears along with the baby when we would do some crying it out. All that being said though, I always think back to I won't have babies forever so maybe I will just continue to be a zombie. I like the Bare Naked Ladies song that says, "Who Needs Sleep? Oh you're never going to get it."- this song played through my head a lot during the first year of Jaylee's life. Lots of Love, Laraine

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  2. Man you guys are amazing. Keep up the good work.

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