Sleep Deprived

A few weeks ago Alex started having a really difficult time going to sleep. We would go through our nightly bedtime routine of bath, stories, nursing, then a song. We would then walk into his bedroom to put him in his crib, and he'd start screaming as soon as we entered the room. He would scream terribly until I couldn't take it any more, and took him out of his crib. For a few days he would fall asleep if I held him on the couch while I watched tv. But then he stopped being able to do that, and the only way I could get him to sleep was to go to bed myself and take him with me. I thought it was just separation anxiety, and was getting more than a little frustrated. As much as I love my son, his seeming need to be touching me or at least in my presence 24 hours a day was driving me crazy.

Out of desperation I started reading a book my latest pediatrician recommended to me, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. Within a few pages, I realized that the problem wasn't that Alex's separation anxiety had gone into overdrive, but instead he was just seriously sleep deprived. With all the changes of moving and everything, I wasn't as careful about putting Alex down for a nap when I saw the signs of tiredness, so as a result he started missing naps. Once he's past a certain point, he just gets overtired, and fights sleep. There were times when he only took a short morning nap, and that's just not enough sleep for a baby. All that lost sleep caught up with us, and the result was an even more reduced sleep schedule because of all the crying and fussing. And my happy, sweet-natured boy was getting cranky and barely smiled for a few weeks.

So I started focusing on making sure he got his two naps (at least), and put him to bed very early. I let him cry himself to sleep, and won't go get him until at least 10 pm, when I'll feed him when he cries. The first day we started with the new program, he got 4 hours more sleep than the day before! He's now averaging at least 3 hours more per day than he was before. No wonder he was so grumpy! I wish I could say that he never cries when I put him down to sleep, but he still does. However, when he wakes up an hour after going to bed at night, he now only cries about 2 minutes before going back to sleep. Previously he needed me to go in, nurse him, and rock him back to sleep, otherwise he'd cry for about an hour. So there is progress.

Best of all, my baby is now the happy, good-natured boy he should be! He has been smiling and laughing more, and even chatters to himself more now. Yay!

Here's Alex showing me that he is ready for his morning nap by rubbing his face on a blanket and sucking his thumb.