#early waking

time started by the alarm

to be first patient

for the doctor's procedure

making trepidation worse.

.

I have been wanting to start dream journaling, so when I woke up early this morning after a particularly bizarre dream, I decided to force myself to get up and write it all down before I forgot it. Unfortunately, by doing that, I woke myself up too much to get back to sleep, so I just decided to start my day.

As expected, Nathan continued to wake at the 430/500am marks crying, but this time, we let him cry it out.  It sometimes took up to 20 mins before he fell back asleep but we were relieved that he was actually getting more sleep in.  This continued for 3 days and then he stopped waking up at this time!!  It was amazing.   I had a baby that was nearly sleeping through the night and I was waking up feeling rested myself!  I say 'nearly' because he still had a couple of short crying bursts in the middle of the night, but most lasting less than a minute.

Nathan still didn't shake the habit of crying for a minute when being put down, but it didn't last long before he would nod off to sleep, and when he woke, he would wake up happy while yammering away to himself...such a pleasant sound for a mom to wake up to :)

So Andrew and I have continued to sleep on the sleeper couch.  We have decided that this is how it will be going forward and that it was important for Nathan to have his own room.  We have continued to have Nathan sleep on his own throughout the night without breastfeeding.  This, unfortunately, led me to having my period return for the first time since before pregnancy.

Although everything I have read about sleep training indicated that a sleep-trained baby will be able to fall asleep on his own without crying, our Nathan seemed to still cry whenever I put him in his crib.  His cry was nowhere as hysterical as it was at the beginning of sleep training and it only lasted about 30 seconds before he calmed himself down and eventually fell asleep.  His crying seemed to be out of habit and maybe he just felt like the crying was part of his sleep routine.  Because it didn't last very long, Andrew and I knew it was something that we could deal with.  

Nathan would sleep a pretty long stretch before waking (maybe about 4 hours).  When he woke, he would cry anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes before falling back asleep.  This would be a bit annoying in the middle of the night since it would wake us, but we refrained from going in his room to check on him.

He seemed to have mastered the skill of falling asleep on his own, and settling back asleep, but he still seemed to wake up very early (even with blackout panels).  Sometimes he would only sleep for 9-10 hours and then wake at 5am or 6 am crying.  I've previously read that some babies only needed 12 hours a day and since he typically naps two hours a day, I'd assume his early waking was a sign that he was done sleeping.  This was brutal for me because I was still so tired but had to force myself to get up and get our day started.