happy birthday Ollie!
so the monster is finally turning one this Sunday. as he approaches the first year of his life, I kinda start to look at him differently. The days of him being an infant..is kinda hazy, but the videos of his milestones remind me of how we passed those days together.
A couple of posts go, I wrote about how Ollie was having some trouble with his sleep. Previously when he was nursing every 2 hours, back in November 2012, Donald would give me a hand by helping me put Ollie to sleep just so that Ollie would be just as comfortable with Donald as he was with me putting him to sleep. This would mean that if he were to wake again at 11pm and I was already asleep, Donald would be able to put him to sleep without him having to nurse.
We worked at it then, and it worked. Ollie started being able to sleep longer (about 4 -5 hours a stretch) and I was getting the needed sleep. We went to Melaka, he fell sick, separation anxiety kicked in and everything went haywire. We waited till he was better before trying what we succeeded with before.
Except that this time we were dealing with an older and wiser Oliver. And the “problem” escalated with him crying the moment we put him in the baby carrier to pat him to sleep. Aiiiiii. For the past two weeks or so, Ollie would nurse before bedtime, and instead of falling to sleep, he became awake. Donald would take over to pat him to sleep and the crying would begin. Depending on how tired he was, he may fall asleep in the carrier, if not I may have to step in to nurse him to sleep in the carrier again. I was getting tired and it was frustrating. He wouldn’t sleep easily even if he nursed to sleep. I would put him in his cot and he would suddenly wake up again, and we’d have to start allll over. After the third time one night, I placed him back into his cot and I walked out of his room. I was going to do something drastic if I were going to stay in his room. I woke Donald and he took over. Less than 10 mins later, he was back in our room and the monster was asleep. The cheek!!
It was this medley of confusing actions that was tearing me apart. Nursing sometimes made him more awake. Sometimes he would sleep shortly when Donald puts him to sleep. Other times, he would fuss/cry for ages in the carrier, signing that he wanted to nurse even though he just nursed earlier. *groan*
So last night, I threw in the towel at 2am, and brought him into our bed. Now, I had been strongly against co-sleeping. I know the benefits, but I need my space to sleep, and I get backaches and neckaches when I co-sleep with Ollie (tried before), and Ollie has fallen off the bed twice when co-sleeping, and I got the evil eye from Donald which REALLY doesn’t help the situation. But I was really tired. I have had enough.
And we had better sleep. I wasn’t jarred awake by the crying broadcasted by the baby monitor, Ollie slept better and nursed only once (which was 3 hours later) and with Donald somewhat doing the active co-sleeping, I had better sleep.
Looks like we’ll be doing this for awhile to readjust Ollie’s sleep before he goes back to his room.
