Doing a (silent) happy dance

Alex's sleep is getting better. He's sleeping longer and it's getting easier to put him to bed. For the most part. Two nights ago, he didn't want to fall asleep. I tried all my usual methods, but it was a no-go. After an hour of rocking, singing, bum patting, shushing I needed a break. So I left Alex's room. "Mama" he called out. There was a long pause, then another "mama". Not loud, just like a "hello? you still there?". "Mama is still here" I called out to Alex from the kitchen. Then there was another pause, longer this time. More than a couple of minutes went by. "Mama?". I again reassured him I was still around. He did this maybe two more times. Then something completely miraculous and happy-dance worthy happened. He fell asleep.

He. Fell. Asleep. On his own. This is the first time he's done that at bedtime (He did it once a week ago after being up in the middle of the night for 3 hours).

Most of his little toddler friends have been falling asleep on their own for ages. Almost since birth for some of them. He's not like other babies. He's never let me put him down in his crib, happily babbling to himself as he drifts off to sleep. It was more like screaming. Wailing. Acting like I'm forcing him to listen to Nickelback all day long. Almost a year ago we tried Cry It Out (CIO), but after 2 hours of crying we couldn't do it. My bookshelf is full of baby sleep books. We called our method the No-Sleep Sleep Solution. Months later when he still wasn't sleeping through the night, my sister said the only way is the dreaded cry it out. She's a strong believer in it. I asked her "so once you get them to sleep finally at night, do you have to let them cry it out in the middle of the night too?". Hmm, she said, by then her kids were already sleeping through the night on their own when she did CIO. I just felt like there had to be another way. Dr Sears, attachment parenting guru, wrote that you should do what works for your family. Cry it out did not work for us (especially while Alex was still in our room with us). Eventually we were able to make a bit of space in our apartment, and we moved out of his room. At the same time I weaned him from breastfeeding. Then he started occasionally sleeping through the night.

We went from singing every song our sleep-deprived brains could think of. Then for the longest time I nursed him to sleep (which is BAD according to all those damn sleep books). Now he usually takes the bottle to sleep (BAD again). It's 15 minutes usually to get him to sleep. It won't last forever and soon he'll be too big to cuddle in my lap. I know he'll eventually fall asleep on his own, just like the other milestones. He'll get there on his own time, in his own way.  *If not, I'll have to be like the creepy mom in I love You Forever and sneak into his house and sing my grown son to sleep.

Come on it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride...

Alex woke up super early this morning so I decided to take him out in the sleigh to tire him out before trying to put him down for a nap. This was the result:

On the mend

Miss Molly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick

So she called for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick
The doctor came with his bag and his hat

And he knocked on the door with a rat-a-tat-tat

He looked at the dolly and he shook his head

And he said "Miss Molly put her straight to bed"

He wrote on some paper for a pill, pill, pill

"I'll be back in the morning with my bill, bill, bill."

I woke up Friday morning to a very hot baby. He was feverish and pretty crabby. I gave him something for his fever and hoped for the best. His crabbiness went away but I just couldn't get him to sleep. He had been up a couple of hours straight the night before (a regular occurrence for him so I didn't think anything of it) so I really needed him to nap. So I could nap too. By 4pm there was still no napping, he was miserable and I was exhausted. I took him out in the stroller because that always does the trick (I gave up on my nap), He napped for about an hour. He was in slightly better spirits.

Then the no sleeping continued. He finally fell asleep around midnight after numerous attempts and tricks to get him to sleep. He slept for 45 minutes the woke up again. It took me another 30 minutes to get him back to sleep. This sleeping in 45 minute intervals lasted all night. All. Night. Sleeping only 45 minutes at a time does some crazy stuff to your brain. I think I was thisclose to seeing magic pixies dancing around my head as they chanted "no sleep!". Saturday was only slightly better with a 2 hour nap the entire day. He fell asleep at 11 and woke up, yep, you guessed it at 11:45.

 We took him to the Children's hospital, but he was only seen by the triage nurse (nice lady, but needs to pop a mint her mouth after her cigarette break). She said it might be an ear infection. I asked her how long the wait would be. She was honest and said it would be long and we'd be better off going home. So we left and even at 3am still didn't fall asleep on the way home. Rick drove up and down on a small expressway near our house. Alex fell asleep almost right away. Ahhh!

I went to the clinic near my house on Sunday and he was seen by a doctor right away since we were the only ones there. No ear infection but his throat is infected.

Last night was a decent night sleep wise. It's funny, all I need is a ok night of sleep to bounce back. Yes still tired, but no taunting pixies. Alex is much less clingy today and even went down the baby slide on his own at the park. Nothing like a little park therapy to make everything better.

The Amazing-Never-Sleeps-Super-Awake-Baby

Sleep is good. Sleep is great. You will become psychotic if denied sleep for long enough. You hear that Alex? You're making Mama crazy. The past couple of nights he's gone back to his sleep for a few hours in a row, then wake up every hour. Plus he threw in a "hey 4 AM is morning somewhere, time to partaaay" last night. So this morning his usual thing is to go for a nap about 2 hours after he's woken up. He napped for 20 minutes then crabbed at me. Okey dokey, time to go out for a walk. The stroller usually does the trick if he won't nap at home. Went downtown, did a little shopping, got some lunch, got my watch strap adjusted all while Alex STAYED AWAKE during the stroller. What the french toast baby? Gave him a bottle, nope. Took him out of the stroller for a while, nope. Breastfed him downtown next to the university, even though I'm trying to wean him during the day, still nope. I get home with him and feed him again. Another 20 minute nap. Followed by an hour of screaming. No matter what I tried. I put him in the Ergo, ok, baby lets go for a walk. I walked around with Alex for an hour. Nada. I have gone through all of my tricks and nothing worked. He's finally asleep, the bedtime routine worked its magic on Alex.

But for how long?

Ugh!

Remember this Alex?

Or this?

How about this?

Sleeping Beauty

I'm giddy with excitement and don't know where to start. It's news that makes you want to stop strangers on the street to tell them about it. I think I should go buy a lottery ticket today.

Alex slept SEVEN HOURS last night.

He hasn't slept that many hours in a row since October. Even back then it was only the one night.
When he was born people would always ask if I was getting any sleep. Yes, I would boast, he only wakes up two or three times a night, I would say proudly. He hit the dreaded 6 week fussiness and never really got back from it. It was impossible to get him to fall asleep. I don't know how many nights I roamed the streets at midnight with him in the carrier, desperate for him to fall asleep. I complained to his doctor, who brushed off my concerns and said "Some babies just don't sleep". I thought babies slept 16 hours a day and I would have plenty of leisure time. Ummm not so much.
For a while it got so bad, he was waking up every hour. I thought maybe because he was rolling over and waking himself up. I was so desperate I considered getting this which is basically a baby straight jacket. I bought lots of sleep solution books, none helped. My husband and I joked we had the No-Sleep Sleep Solution.

Getting seven hours sleep, you see, is like getting the glass slippers to go to the ball. Here's hoping Alex doesn't turn into a pumpkin at midnight.