Sleep Log

Caleb in his crib. Sleeping? Not so much....

I'm going to write, once again about our sleep situation. Basically, since Caleb had his crazy 3 month growth spurt, he continued to wake up so frequently that I found myself utterly exhausted. I was going into his room every hour and a half to two hours to nurse him back to sleep, so the most sleep I was getting was about one hour. Not nearly enough. So one night I ended up just bringing him into bed with me...and amazingly I had a decent nights sleep. Caleb still fed frequently, but I found I could nurse him without barely waking up. Fast forward 3 months, and Caleb is still sleeping with me, waking frequently to feed and heavily addicted to being nursed to sleep. A part of me loves to co-sleeping arrangement. It feels great to have him so close and not having to get up out of bed so often is great. I find now, however, that I'm not sleeping quite as well. I end up in weird positions trying to nurse him and feel sore in the morning and not overly refreshed. Plus, Alan and I are ready to have our bed back. So, after a lot of reading and talking to friends I've decided to read the book 'No Cry Sleep Solution' and come up with a plan to 1. Help Caleb learn to sleep without nursing, 2. Decrease the number of night wakings and feedings and 3. Get Caleb back to sleeping in his own crib.

The first step of the book is to write a sleep log where you track how often your baby awakes. Here is mine from last night.

6:38 asleep (earlier than usual but he seemed really tired)
7:15 awake, nurse back to sleep
8:34 awake, nurse back to sleep
9:46 awake, nurse back to sleep
10:20 awake, nurse back to sleep...I also head to bed with him
12:33 awake, nurse back to sleep
2:59 awake, nurse back to sleep
4:34 awake, nurse back to sleep
5:50 awake, nurse back to sleep
7:00 awake and start out day

Total wake ups: 8
Longest stretch of sleep: Just over 2 hours

Wow. I didn't realize quite how often he was waking and feeding. But, the author of the book had the exact same problem, as many parents do. I've learned that we all sleep in cycles - periods of deep and light sleep - and that older children and adults (and some babies) can easily fall back into the deep sleep, but others hit the light sleep stage, wake up and don't know how to get back to sleep. Or, in Caleb's case, they look for the usual sleep association (nursing) and think they need that in order to fall back asleep. So Caleb is waking up every 1 1/2 - 2 hours when he hits a light sleep cycle. Luckily, the book has many great, gentle ways to help your baby learn to fall back asleep on their own and eventually stop waking up so frequently. Alan is reading the book now so we can come up with a plan of action, and then 10 days from now we will do another 'sleep log' to see how things have changed. It is reassuring to know many other parents have the same issues and have found the solutions in this book very helpful. I'm feel positive that our sleep situation will be greatly improved over the next few weeks. Wish us luck!

On a final note, I had my first ocean swim in over a year this week! I put on my wetsuit, jumped on the surfboard and paddled around the Cove. An excellent workout, and it felt sooo good to be back in the sweet, salt water on a hot summer day! I'm hoping to make this, and snorkeling, a regular activity.

Paddling around the Cove