Sleep...precious sleep!

Last night was a little rough. Maybe because sleep came in waves of three hours – not something we’ve had to deal with in a very long time. Other than a few bouts of fussiness early on, which was caused by a tummy so bloated you could bounce a coin off it; thanks to a mom who decided to grub down on broccoli, garlic, and I’m sure a few other choices found on the “not recommended for breastfeeding moms’ menu,” Isaac has overall been a pretty good sleeper. We did our best to maintain the Eat – Play – Sleep philosophy (thanks to Baby Wise), so when we started down the path of official “sleep training” at four months, we were pretty confident getting him to sleep through the night wasn’t going to be too much trouble – that is until baby tooth #1 decided to make an appearance.

It’s lovely how the timing of teething conveniently started as I went back to work. I guess the one positive is that I could stop feeling guilty for thinking his sleeping patterns were changing because he was upset with me going back to work. The change in his sleeping habits clearly stemmed from the poor guy learning to cope with a sharp piece of calcium trying to penetrate his soft baby gums.

To help ease his discomfort, we adopted the trifecta method (as Mark’s buddy from work calls it): .4 ml baby Tylenol, (2) dissolving Hylands teething tablets, and a chilled Orajel gum massage. This has been helping – a lot, but last night was no match for even the trifecta. The booby was the only thing soothing this little man, that is until Dad came to the rescue at 5:00 o’clock this morning with “The Hold” – baby facing outward, Dad’s huge right paw under his belly and left paw wrapped around his arms; the result – a snuggled baby who feels secure and safe. Thankfully, the combination of the hold and a little rocking did the trick and I was able to sneak in an extra hour of sleep. Hooray!

Our plan for tonight is this: make sure Isaac gets a FULL meal before bedtime (no sleeping on the job!); followed by a good night diaper change and a solid burp session; then comes the trifecta therapy; and finally it’s time to put him down to bed. He’ll probably squirm a little and might even fuss for a few minutes, but it will pay off in the end – so we hope. Now, if we see a trend from last night and 1 a.m. rolls around and Isaac decides to double as my erroneously set alarm clock, instead of taking the lazy, I’m half asleep route, so I’ll just give him my boob, I’ll roll over and remind his Dad what he said this morning, “I’ll rock him back to sleep.” Now it’s documented, Mark agreed to take the lead in rocking him back to sleep.

We’ll see how this goes. Tomorrow’s entry may turn into a column seeking advice, because we caved and resorted to half asleep boob therapy because the hold and rock didn’t do the trick. Let’s hope for the best and a restful night sleep!