Wednesday, February 3, 2010

this isn't the tummy time i had in mind.

To put it mildly, it's been a rough couple of weeks.

Camden decided that he doesn't want to sleep on his back anymore. That's for 3 month olds. Apparently, 4 month olds ROLL OVER when they sleep and love to sleep on their tummies. Completely swaddled, nonetheless! Uh oh. All the crazed SIDS people beat into parents' heads these days that babies should never sleep on their tummies. They will re-breathe carbon dioxide and not wake up! Back to sleep, babies, BACK to sleep! Well, Camden didn't get the memo.

He rolls over swaddled, swaddled with one arm out, in a sleep sack, out of a sleep sack -- it doesn't matter. This kid just wants to sleep on his tummy.

When he was swaddled, he'd fuss and fuss cause he'd roll over onto his tummy but couldn't roll back because, uh, he's swaddled. Sometimes, he'd bust out of the swaddle and roll over. That was a little better but he'd still fuss after awhile. And then I was worried about him getting caught in the swaddle blanket somehow because of all that rolling. We tried unswaddling him and had him sleep on his back but he hated it. I'd have to hold his arms down until he fell asleep (he'd wake himself up with his arms) but he'd only sleep like that for a short period of time. The first night we tried to do that, he woke up EVERY HOUR. Ugh.

The next night, I found him with his foot caught between the crib bars cause he'd roll onto his tummy and his right foot would get between the bars. It wasn't stuck or anything as the bars are wide enough apart, but Cam isn't coordinated enough to realize that or figure out how to get his foot out. Sleepless night number 2 down.

Thanks to my trusty fb friends, I found these breathable crib bumpers to help with the "caught foot" problem.

Okay, now that I took care of that issue, maybe Cam will sleep better unswaddled?

Night number 3 -- no such luck! No foot caught, but he still got up every 2 hours on his tummy with his head up like he's doing tummy time. Sigh.

Okay, how about a sleep sack? I got one that was sleeveless and...success! That seemed to work better. That first sleep sack night he slept from 7pm - 2:30am! But then he got up every 2 hours after that. Hmmm...but that's progress, right?

Since then, we've been putting him down in the sleep sack and he sleeps from 7:30pm to about midnight. But then he's been getting up every 2 hours from midnight until 7am. We can't figure out what the deal is. Maybe he's hungry? Brian starts a feeding log and we think he needs more per feeding. We try it but he still gets up.

Usually, I can pat him back to sleep (still in his crib) or give him a pacifier and he's good. Other times, we do feed him. But Cam still hasn't quite figured out the unswaddling. I'm hoping it's just going to take some time and eventually he'll get it. I'm also hoping he'll learn soon how to soothe himself back to sleep before I have enough bags under my eyes for a trip around the world.

Sleeping through the entire 12 hours has gotta happen at some point...right?

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