(un)swaddle saga update

We’re a week and change into the unswaddling project. It’s getting better! We got a sleepsack for warmth and for the association of getting zipped up. Now little buddy goes for a few hours at a time. Twice we’ve gotten five hour stretches. Last night he didn’t come to our bed til quarter of 5! Almost like old times.

I am still putting him down asleep, but now I lay him on his side, which minimizes flailing. Sometimes he stays that way, sometimes he turns onto his back. If he flips onto his belly, which he is now expert at, he gets instantly very angry. This rarely happens, though. He is not so good at belly to back rolling.

A can get him to sleep while he’s laying in the crib, so she’s been dealing with more of the wakings at the beginning of the night. He does not really tolerate my doing that, of course, what with the feedbags right there n all.

In a moment of desperation last week, I ordered a baby merlin magic sleepsuit, but now I think we might return it an just keep on keepin’ on.

Slowly but surely, I guess.

I was worried that he wouldn’t calm down with his arms free and waving about, but he does. It takes him a bit longer. If he’s really going, we hold his arms gently to his sides and he generally drifts off.

I’ve been trying to change it up so he’s not always nursed to sleep. When a mom is lying next to him, he’ll settle pretty quickly on his own and sleep. Hopefully soon that’ll also be true in his crib.

Next week we are in Trinidad, so we’ll see how all this pans out there. We’re very excited for the trip: in all our travels, the first half of next week is our first family vacation!

Operation Un-swaddle continues…

I started writing about the great unswaddling because it was frustrating, and this is an outlet. But after spending an eternity scouring the internet while I try to get our hands-free boy back to sleep, I now feel like I’m (maybe for the first time on this blog?) supplying a resource.

Here’s the thing: it seems that most peds (ours included) say to swaddle til it stops working, til they break free, or til they roll. Swaddling was *definitely* still working for us, but he rolled. But nobody tells you what to do in that situation! Have all other babies only started rolling concurrently with the end of swaddling “working”?? All the other babies on the internet, it seems, either went cold turkey and surprise! they sleep great! better, even, without that pesky swaddle! OR they’re swaddled til they’re nearly a year old, but never seem to have the vaguely suicidal tendencies that our zunzun seems to be demonstrating as he cranes his face around to mash his nose and mouth into the mattress, as if his gums will pull him over.

Things are not getting monumentally better (yet — ever the optimist?).

Last night and the night before, he got one 2 1/2 hour stretch in there. The night before last, after a lengthy attempt to re-settle him, he came into bed with us. Last night, I got him back down fairly easily, but he only lasted 40 more minutes. We moms are tired, and I confess we haven’t tried to push through into the night.

Last night post-coming into our bed, things were also rocky. His diaper leaked (ugh — the third this week: guess who went up a nighttime diaper size tonight!) and then he lost his mind while I changed his sleeper, diaper, and — yes — just covered the wet spot with receiving blankets. (We’re TIRED!) He didn’t get another significant independent streak in there, instead opting for the all night boob buffet.

Tonight he has so far slept one 30 minute stretch, one 60 minute stretch, and has been back down for about 45 minutes so far. In other words, not a strictly upwards movement. In a fit, I very loosely swaddled his hands down between the 30 and 60 minute stretch, but you can see from those numbers that it was not particularly effective.

Dr. Karp, great swaddling guru, suggests that if your baby starts rolling, that you simply put them to sleep in something you can strap them into place in, like a bouncy seat or swing. But doesn’t that just seem like creating ONE MORE THING you have to get your baby un-used to later?

I fear we have to sleep train to get out of this bind, but we’re going to see my parents this weekend, and to Trinidad in two weeks, so it seems like a real uphill battle there, too…

When he’s asleep during those 2 1/2 hour stretches, he stays on his back with his arms at his sides, as if he were swaddled. Which is interesting because in bed with us, he sleeps on his side. A says that’s because he’s no one’s fool, and in our bed that’s how you access the buffet table. In his bed, the food options are limited to none.

I’ve been combing the archives of those blogs I read with older babies, one at at time, trolling for sleep training stories. If you’ve advice to give, please do.

Our boy

In the last couple of weeks, we have entered the really fun territory. The zunzun spends tons of his time smiling, laughing, gurgling, squealing, and babbling. He has a lot to say! (Where’d that come from? ;))

He is his happiest and most charming — like most babies — first thing in the morning. He lies in bed between us and is a perpetual motion noise machine. We love it. Also he tends to poop during this special time together, which is generally the impetus to break the spell and get up!

He loves to be fake scolded, and will belly laugh if you announce that you’ve had it with him. It’s too funny. He continues to adore bathtime, and gets visibly excited when we start the water. He is getting more interested in bath toys and his feet, and tonight was his first bath where he sat up lart of the time instead of back floating and kicking. A mom gets in the bath with him every night.

He has noticed the cats and will grab for them. Our youngest and most rambunctious cat regularly seeks him out for pets, and the boy will take hold of a fistful of fur or run his hands through it, depending. All creatures are so far tolerant. We’re being watchful.

When something is too enjoyable for just a smile, but not quite laugh-worthy, he makes a long “khhhheeee” noise, which I find super entertaining.

He does not love the stroller, but I have faith that — like the bottle — he will at least grow to accept it. He does like the carrier, though, and now fits easily in the ergo.

He’s huge and alert and no one believes he’s 4.5 months. It’s such a good age.

Cold Turkey: night 2

The goal for tonight is: better than last night.
Last night was better than the night before.
It’s all we can really ask for, isn’t it?

He’s already done better. He went down easily, slept the first sleep cycle and woke up. He went back down pretty easily (20 min?), and has been asleep for an hour and a half now. Last night we only got 40 more solo minutes. This means he made it through a cycle transition on his own, hands free.

He took two naps in the crib with free hands today. They both only lasted 40-45 minutes. I took a nap with him for the last nap of the day, and he slept for 2 1/2 hours. Getting a solid afternoon nap makes bedtime go much more smoothly.

We’ll see how long he lasts tonight. I’m hopeful that we’re headed, for now, in the right direction. He’s so happy and jolly when he’s rested — we want to be around *that* baby.

Updated! Unswaddle attempt #2: cold turkey

After weeks of wanting it so badly, yesterday our boy rolled from back to belly several times.

On the one hand, hurray! V exciting.

On the other, it meant that last night he flipped onto his face in the swaddle, freaked the fuck out, and successfully ended his days as a taquito.

He slept the rest of last night with us, and whole he slept several short stretches without my boob in his mouth, he spent a lot of time with it in.

Today was a little wonky, sched-wise, and the first two naps of the day took place in the car seat and carrier, so no test there. We took a much-needed 3 hour family nap this afternoon/evening, and are only now trying him in the crib.

He went down fine. He slept his first 40 min cycle fine, stirring only to get himself turned on his side. But I’ve spent the last hour trying to get him to stay asleep back in his crib instead of mashing his face into the mattress and trying to flip.

Let’s hope this process doesn’t take long. For now, though, I’ve already started mourning those halcyon days of long sleep stretches.

Update:

He slept for another single sleep cycle and woke up again, unable totransition himself into the next. A said fuck it and he spent the rest of the night hogging our bed. He spent much less of the night nursing, though, and more just sleeping quite soundly between us, so it was an improvement? It’s fair for him to need some time to adjust to the new feeling. Today we are napping with free arms. He slept 45 min in his crib this am, and is going back down again now. Not terrible.

I did it!

It was ok! I worked for 2.5 hours… with only like three facebook checks. I re-read some stuff, typed up some notes from meetings, found a great primary document, consulted with isa re: library biz. It wasn’t so terrible after all!

I resisted the urge to dash upstairs when I heard him throwing a fit at naptime (he almost never gets put down for a nap by anyone but me and almost always nurses before a nap). And then he slept for over an hour for her! What!?

When we came upstairs at the end, he was happily sitting in the sitter’s lap, reading books. He looked up at us, but didn’t seem particularly surprised or even happy to see us. So obviously when A left to take the sitter home and go to class, I nursed him and shed maybe 2 tears and then he was full and happy and I tickled him and he squealed and commenced to talk and gurgle and laugh. He didn’t take much from the bottle (3 oz) all afternoon, so maybe he was just a little too hungry to be excited to see us…? 😉

In other big new-parent news, I just installed our new convertible carseat! Bubba was not feeling that infant seat anymore. When he wakes up from his nap, we’ll give it a whirl! We got a Britax Boulevard 70, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the 70 lbs weight limit (you know, just in case little buddy stays in the 90th percentile…). It was an overwhelming decision for some reason, so I’m just letting you know.

New babysitter is here…

and I’m sitting at my desk. A little nauseous. But not, actually, because the baby is chilling with someone else. Rather, because I seem to have forgotten what my dissertation is about…

Travel at 10-15 weeks

Our trouper el zunzun went on 7 airplanes between 10 and 15 weeks. He’s our champ! My suggestion: let baby fuss while you board so’s to seem more impressive when he’s then pretty well quiet the rest of the flight. You know: set the bar low.

As I mentioned before, we rented a Beco Butterfly carrier, which is how we toted the boy in the airport. That said, we also brought an umbrella stroller, and while we only used it a few times in our destination locales, it was super awesome to have in the airport. We basically used it to haul our carry on bags and gate checked it. Also it meant we got to go through the special wheelchair and stroller security line. At security, by the way, you can go through with the baby still in the carrier. They wipe your hands on the other side and test it to make sure you’re not using your infant for smuggling, but it’s still easier than taking the carrier off and jostling little buddy all around.

A had to work on the plane, so she brought a backpack, but I made sure all my stuff fit in the diaper bag so we didn’t have three bags to contend with. Best decision I made. In the diaper bag I also brought two changes of clothes for the boy and one for me, just in case, and I’m glad I did because he had a huge huge huge blowout in the airport and a lot of those extras got used (and some got thrown away).

The first flight was about 3 hours, and he slept and nursed and looked around and fussed on and off. We’d packed a couple of books and a couple of toys, but we only use one toy of the whole lot for all our travels. There was plenty to look around at, plus he mostly stayed happy with our shining faces.

On the second flight, and all subsequent flights, he was swaddled and nursed and slept his little heart out. Flights less than 3 hours he slept gate to gate. Our long flight to CA he slept 1.5 hours, woke and played, and nursed/dozed on the way down. The flight back, he fell asleep shortly after takeoff at 6:30 our time and slept until getting to the car at our home airport at 11:30. Essentially, he went down for the night mid-flight.

Which brings me to the most crucial question: timing. We chose not to book early morning flights because they’re awful and I’m up enough without having to bustle out the door in the wee hours. But we flew with departure times as early as 8:00est and as late as 2:00pst. While dude is in better spirits in the am, as I just said we really lucked out with our mid-air bedtime.

The other timing question we didn’t quite figure out, which was the issue of time zones. We were in 3 time zones in as many weeks, and by the end poor zunzun was wrecked. While his sched is v v flexible, his bedtime has been between 6 and 8 since he was about 7 weeks old, so poor buddy was ready for bed at 4:30ish in CA, but we couldn’t put him down. It made for some cranky evenings, but nothing horrific. When we got home the sched and especially his sleep were a nightmare, particularly because we got back the night daylight savings time started. Having no other ideas for getting back on track, I essentially did nothing for four days except try to adhere to our pre-travel norm. It worked eventually.

Lastly, let me say that traveling via plane with cloth diapers was so not worth it for us. By which I mean taking them in the car for a week at my parents’ was nbd, but packing them to fly with limited suitcase space was the wrong decision. We did it for our first week away, but just did disposables for the subsequent two trips. Way easier.

The one thing I wish we’d done differently, and will in the future, was that we didn’t bring our carseat. It seemed like an overwhelming amount of stuff, so we just rented with the car. The rental carseats were clean and new, but they were also cheap and shitty and clearly uncomfortable.

Hope this was helpful! We’re going to Trinidad at the end of April, so we’ll see how much of this holds up at 5 months!

Letting go…just a little

We’ve hired a girl to come in two or three afternoons a week to take care of the zunzun. It’s the only way I’ll be able to actually write my dissertation.

She starts tomorrow.

She seems fantastic. She’s Colombian, and will speak Spanish to the boy. She came to the US as an au pair, so has been very background checked, and her references are glowing.

I cried when we sent her the email.

I know it’s absurd. Most babies by 4 months are being cared for by people in addition to their parents, many of them for the work week. We’ll just be downstairs in the office, for 8-12 hours a week.

It will be good for all three of us, I know. I just didn’t expect to feel sad about this tiny letting go…

Non-WP blogs…

Haven’t allowed me to comment for ages. Blogger be damned!

So, just know that your baby is adorable, and I totally relate/sympathize/empathize/hear you.