We Sleep Through The Night

For over a month now, we've been able to sleep through the night! That's right, we have an almost 4 month old who sleeps from 7-9pm to 5-7am without waking up. Want to know how we did it, well read on.

Remember this post and this post about how hard it was to get him to go to sleep. I know that many of you are amazed at how this sleeping through the night is possible, so I'll give you some hints and explain about what we did.

From the very first time we brought Remington home, we wanted him to learn to sleep in his crib. I think co-sleeping is a great idea, but I'm too freaked out about SIDS to do it. We did try it twice, in desperation, but I still didn't get any sleep because I was too worried about rolling on top of him, or him smothering in the blankets or soft bed. The first couple weeks, Remington slept a lot (as newborns often do), but I still had to make sure to wake up every 3 hours to feed him. That was such a pain. We had to do that until he got back to his birth weight (and remember how hard that was). A side note: I started reading The Happiest Baby on the Block when I was pregnant, but I never finished it.

After he was able to be allowed to sleep through the night, he still woke up about every three hours to eat. When we switched to formula supplementing, he slept better because he seemed fuller. Formula also takes longer to digest. Soon, he was sleeping for 4 or 5 hours at a time. He wasn't always in the crib at this time, though, because sometimes we had to settle with the vibrator chair out of desperation, and we had trouble getting him to fall asleep before 10 or 11pm.

We tried everything. Some of them worked a night or two, while others didn't seem to make a difference.

• Cry it out did not work for me. I couldn't let him just scream, and I wasn't going to sleep like that anyway, so I might as well hold him. 

• Swaddling worked for a little bit, but Remington is so squirmy all the time, he eventually didn't like having his arms confined. 

• Giving him a bath before bed worked a little, but I didn't notice much difference if we didn't give him a bath a night.

• Lights out and silence really didn't work. He's too much like his parents. We may only have one child, but our house is super noisy and I have to have the radio on to fall asleep. Besides, we live in an old house with creaky floors. Every time we left the room, the floor creaking woke him up.

• The mobile worked a little bit. It gave him something to listen to and look at, but he would occasionally wake up when it shut off. (We had the Baby Einstein fish mobile.) He also tended to just watch it and not go to sleep, so we stopped that and fazed it out after the batteries died. We replaced the batteries a while later, but it didn't seem to make a difference for his sleep anymore. 

• The Wubbanub helped a little bit when he would wake up because he lost the pacifier. However, he moves his arms around too much when he's fighting going to sleep and would fling the Wubbanub away, so we just use regular pacifiers now (using pacifiers to sleep is supposed to help decrease SIDS).

• We also tried making the crib mattress softer/warmer. This freaked me out because, like I've said, I constantly worry about SIDs. It irritates me to no end when I see pictures of people's babies in cribs with blankets and toys thrown everywhere! Remington's crib is just the mattress and sheet, period. He sleeps in warm pajamas, and we have the temperature set in his room. We don't even use the bumpers, since they can be a SIDs hazard. Anyway, Landon folded up a blanket and put it under the sheet. It didn't seem to make a difference (at the time, Remington still didn't want to sleep in the crib), so we stopped that.

Here's what did work. To get him to sleep, we fed him and took him up to his room to hold and rock him to sleep. He would often fall asleep in our arms, but would wake up as soon as we put him down in the crib or the vibrating seat, or as soon as he lost his pacifier. We then tried laying down on the couch in his room with him tucked in our arm with the pacifier. He would fall asleep like that, lying pretty flat, so it was easier to transfer him to the vibrator chair or the crib.

Now we have a perfect system going on.

• First, he usually gets hungry around 6 or 7pm, so we feed him and change him. 
• Then, he is awake, alert, smiling, and playing for about 30 minutes to an hour. 
• He starts getting fussy and we change his diaper, put him in his pajamas, and feed him a little more. 
• Then, we hold him in our arms with the pacifier. He likes to be facing your chest (his stomach to our stomach- like they taught me to breastfeed) so that the pacifier stays in his mouth because you're there. He also likes to be patted on the butt and bounced a bit. 
• He might cry a bit or struggle against us, but usually he's barely able to keep his eyes open. It also helps to shush him to sleep when he's struggling (hold out the sh sound). He falls asleep like that with the TV blaring (primetime shows) and the lights on. 
• He lays asleep in our arms like that until 9pm. We take him up to his crib, lay him down, and he's good for the night.

So, good luck to all of you new parents. I hope you find a good system like we did, and I hope our systems lasts (I'm not looking forward to the growth spurts or teething).

Life and Our Daily Routine

I've noticed that I haven't actually written a real blog post in a while. I've added pictures and participated in photo carnivals, but you haven't heard anything about our life recently. Here's what's going on...nothing much.

I've been busy with work and taking care of Remington. He's been sleeping through the night most of the time and is over his cold. I still think he's going to have problems with allergies. His next doctor's appointment is at the end of February, when he's 4 months old. I've checked about physical developmental milestones and he's right on track except for lifting his head when he's on his stomach. He still hates tummy time and gets mad because he can't move anywhere or look around. I've been propping him up with the Boppy, but he only likes that a little bit more than the floor. He loves sitting on your knee, lap, or in the Boppy. He just likes to look around and watch everything.

We got the excersauser out the other day to see what he'd do. Granted, it says for 4 months and up, but we figured he holds his head and body up well enough to try. Wow, the thing just engulfed him. He's still so tiny that his legs didn't come close to reaching the bottom and he couldn't reach any of the toys if he tried.

Now that we have a 3 month old (Remington's 3 month birthday is Friday), we've gotten into a routine for our daily endeavors.

5am- Remington wakes up. Sometimes this can be earlier or a bit later. 3am-7:30am
5:45am- I have to be up for work during the week.
6:00am- Landon gets up when Remington does and feeds him at 6am.
6:15am- I'm usually downstairs. I take Remington while Landon finishes getting ready.
~6:30am- Landon leaves for work during the week.
6:45am- I leave with Remington to take him to daycare. We get there by 7am.
7:00am-7:25am- I commute to work.
7:35am-4:00pm- I'm at work. I leave as soon as school ends and commute back to pick up Remington from daycare.
4:00pm- When we get home I usually feed Remington again.
5:00pm-6:30pm- Landon and I chill out in the living room or basement watching TV, getting online, watching movies, or just talking and playing with Remington.
7:00pm- We usually eat between 6-8 depending on what's going on. Remington is usually hungry again at this time too.
7:30pm- After Remington finishes eating, I hold and rock him in my arms. He will often fall asleep or he just sits and smiles and watches the world.
8:00-9:00pm- Landon and I watch primetime TV and head to bed at 9pm. Remington is usually asleep by this time and we slide him gently into the crib. If he doesn't fall asleep right away or wakes up, we lay with him and rock him to sleep in his room. Most nights we're ready to go to bed by 10pm.

We used to actually get to bed (after getting ready and getting Remington to sleep) by 10:30pm at the earliest, but now he's doing much better at going to sleep. We usually feed him quite a bit right before 8 or 9pm.
On weekends, the schedule is mostly the same in the morning and late at night, but we could be doing any number of things during the day. Remington eats about every 3 hours during the day regardless of where we are.
That's our daily routine recently. I like it because we're actually getting quite a bit of sleep. Hopefully it stays that way.

Sweet baby smiles

Remington has been smiling so much lately. It's so adorable and I have a million pictures of him smiling. This last week, he has slept through the night 4 days. I don't know what we did differently, maybe he's just getting old enough to sleep longer or we just get up earlier (5:45am to get ready for work). Either way, I hope it lasts. Now, enjoy some cute pictures of our little boy and his smiles. Click on the picture to view it larger.

2 Month shots and sleep, what?!

Last night was the first night that Remington has slept through the night! Yay! I was so tired after having to get up with him this weekend (I let Landon get sleep since he worked all weekend), so I told him that it was his turn to get up to feed Remington, and of course, Remington decides to sleep through the night. He's been fighting a little cold, where his nose is stuffy and he coughs, so I didn't know how he was going to sleep. We gave him a bath before bed and feed him in the bathroom with the hot water running for some steam. We also had the humidifier on. We'll try the same thing tonight and see what happens. It might be different, though, because Remington had his 2 month shots today.

I went to the health department today after work. Again, apparently our regular doctor's office doesn't do 2 month shots. Anyway, Remington did very well. He cried, but I've heard him cry harder when he's mad when we change his diaper or he's hungry. When the nurse gave him the first shot, he cried but calmed down right away by sucking on his pacifier. He really cried when she gave him the next two shots. It took a little bit to calm him down, but he did well. Now, we just have to look out for signs of infection or reaction. The nurse said to call 911 if he had a whole body rash or trouble breathing. We also have to look for a fever that won't go away with Tylenol, heat at the injection site, rash on his legs, or persistent inconsolable crying. Right now, he's doing fine just sleeping. He doesn't even have a fever.

Sleep and Lack Thereof

Everyone always tells you that sleep is gone with a new baby in the house and the number one question people ask me is how Remington is sleeping.

For the first few weeks, sleep wasn't that bad. Remington probably would've slept through the night if I didn't have to wake him up every 3 hours to feed him. When we struggled with feeding this was hard too, because Remington would eat for 30 minutes to a hour and then I'd have to try to go back to sleep only to get up in two hours. It sucks that you have to count the 3 hours from the beginning on one feeding to the beginning of the next.

Then, around 2 weeks Remington started not wanting to go to sleep. He is still like this now. Once we get him to sleep the first time then we're good, but it takes hours for him to get to sleep in the crib the first time. Like Landon said, no one tells you that you don't get any sleep with a baby because you're never able to go to bed in the first place. Remington just cries and cries until finally after usually 3 hours he falls asleep. We try everything from feeding him again, checking his diaper more, and sitting and constantly putting the pacifier back in his mouth. He'll be asleep, but as soon as he looses the pacifier he's wide awake.

With the supplementing, he started sleeping better until last night. It took 4-5 hours to get him to fall asleep. I'm exhausted and so is Landon. Landon took him for the most part last night because this new medication that is supposed to increase milk production is making me drowsy and dizzy. I wonder if it's worth it. I feel so tired, but when I try to lay down to sleep I can't. Ugh, when will it get better?

Relieved

The doctor's appointment to find out if Remington is gaining weight was yesterday. Landon and I took him in and I nervously brought Remington to the scale to be weighed. I hoped and prayed so much these last couple days that he would gain, if not I don't know what I would do. Of course, I thought worse case scenarios like cystic fibrosis or celiac disease.

I watched the scale, and sighed in relief when it said 7 pounds 5 ounces. Rem gained 4 ounces since Thursday. I'm so happy and now I can relax. I can already tell that I'm going to be one of those mothers that panic every time their kid has a cold. Or like Landon said- he has a headache, it must be a brain aneurysm. Even though he's not back up to his birth weight like he should be by now, at least he's not loosing weight.

Everything that I've read and heard about babies and sleeping through the night is coming true, unfortunately. Apparently babies sleep pretty well until about 2 weeks, then the trouble starts. Right now Remington sleeps well, but it's getting him to sleep that's the problem. Last night we started trying to put him to bed at 7pm. He was sleeping just fine on his boppy, then I feed him at 9pm and took him up to the crib to sleep. He was not going to sleep in the crib. He would cry and scream every time he lost his pacifier, which was like every five minutes. So, Landon and I are constantly having to go back to his room to give him the pacifier. Just as we lay back down, he starts crying again. Even if we held him and rocked him until he was asleep, as soon as he was in the crib he'd cry. He wasn't hungry and didn't need his diaper changed, he just wouldn't stay asleep. Finally, Landon went downstairs and got his bouncy/vibrator seat. We put him in that with his WubbaNub and finally got some rest at 1am. I felt sorry for Landon, because he had to get up for work at 5am. There better not be any more nights like this.