Friday, November 4, 2011

Sleeping arrangements

Guppy and I started co-sleeping on the day he was born. When we brought him home, he slept curdled up right beside me in bed. After he was about 2 weeks old, he started grunting and straining all night long. It was really disturbing my sleep, but we muddled through a few more weeks of co-sleeping.

When Guppy was about a month and half old, I decided to put him to sleep for the night in his car seat (I thought maybe the gruntiness was due to reflux). I kicked John out of the bedroom, put the car seat on his side of the bed, and put my swaddled baby in the seat. The first few nights he slept great, only waking about 2 times. And because he was on my husband's side of the bed, the constant grunting and straining didn't seem to bother me as much. AWESOME! I thought our problems were solved.

But then about 2 week ago Guppy started having trouble at bedtime. He would go right to sleep, and I would transfer him to the car seat. But 20 minutes later he was screaming and crying. The only thing that would calm him was putting him into bed with me and letting him stare at a side table lamp. Over the past week, I stopped putting him in the car seat and just started letting him co-sleep with me again. But he is still waking 20 minutes later, and he is still grunty at night, which is still very disturbing to my sleep. He is better than he used to be, but between the hours of 4am and 7am he is the loudest sleeping baby in world. This basically means that I am awake from 4am almost everyday. UGH.

Now, the ultimate goal is to get Guppy into his crib (in his own room) within the next month or two. I waited until Porgie was 8 months old, and I was utterly exhausted by that time. With Izzy, we used the car seat for sleeping almost exclusively until he was 5 or 6 months old because of all his tummy troubles. He never really slept well in my bed (or in the car seat for that matter), so the transition to his room wasn't hard at all. I have started letting Guppy take a few naps in his crib during the day, but he never sleeps for more than 45 minutes. And he wakes up pissed off. UGH.

So, I am working towards a goal and it is not going to be easy.

4 comments:

Kris said...

Sorry you're having a rough time! We're about to start transitioning ZJ to his bed, not sure how that's gonna go lol.

amanda said...

man i wish i had magic sleep advice. it so sucks doesn't it. you just wish you knew!! bc everyone is sooo much happier when they get enough sleep.

hoping your magic answer comes very soon mama!

misguided mommy said...

Is he gassy? Have you tried Mylecon before bed? It seemed like my kids always slept twice as long after having Mylecon

kristi said...

Good luck!