So when Dominic was first born I wasn't the one who picked him up right away at night. The first couple nights he spent in the nursery at the hospital because I couldn't get up fast enough for him.
When we brought him home he refused to be swaddled and wouldn't stay down in his bed. After falling asleep I would put him down and he would wake up immediately every single time. My mom even tried to train him to sleep by himself but it just didn't work.
Finally he let us swaddle him and with that and the sound machine I was finally able to sleep laying down by myself. He would wake up maybe once a night and go back to sleep. Some nights he would even sleep for 10 hours straight. Then there were others when he would decide to stay up until about 2am. I broke that pretty quick.
I got him going to bed around 930-10 and he would wake up somewhere between 4-6am (once) and go back to sleep then get up at about 830. I had his nap schedule down to 10am, 1230/1pm, 430pm, and 630. Slowly as he has gotten older his nap times have changed to 10am, 130pm, and 530pm and going to bed around 830.
When he would nap during the day I would hold him and then put him down some place secure and let him sleep while I did things fairly close by.
When he got his first set of vaccinations he started waking up exactly 1 hour after going to sleep, I would put the soother back in his mouth and put my hand on his cheek and he would go back to sleep waking up around 4am wanting to be fed then going back to sleep.
Oh yeah, let me tell you, he has always been the type of baby who needs to be nursed and held to go to sleep.
I started a new schedule which included a bath every night before bed to help soothe and relax him before bed and it seemed to work.
So as time went on his sleeping got a bit better and stopped waking up an hour after going to bed and just waking up the once or not all. Then he started growing and teething (still no teeth yet) and he started going to sleep and waking up a few times after going to sleep but was easily put back to sleep but at 2am would wake up and between 2-830 he started waking up 4-6 times a night and the only way to get him back to sleep was to nurse him. At that time I started bringing into the bed with me because I would fall asleep feeding him at 2am and he would get up again shortly there after wanting to be nursed again.
Now since his second set of shots he has been waking up after going to bed and is either awake for the next 2-3 hours or needs to be held to go to sleep. And would continue his 2am wake up routine.
I decided to move his schedule up and do a couple things different to get him to sleep because I hate that I have to nurse him all the time because it gets hard and tiring, and quite frankly I need a bit of a break some times.
So the other night I started feeding him dinner a bit earlier and then I would nurse him around 6/630, give him some cereal, then his bath, read him a story and put him in bed. Because he needs to know I am not leaving him I sat there and watched him because the moment I would leave the room he would scream bloody murder. The first night it took about an hour of on and off again screaming and my hand on his cheek and he finally fell asleep. Now he woke up a few times where I just had to put the soother back in his mouth and he went right back to sleep. He woke up at midnight wanting to be fed and then went back to sleep until 4am where I fed him again and he only woke up one other time after that before his 830 wake up for the day. For me this was an improvement.
Last night I did the same thing, however it was a bit later because I was out for a walk and came back a bit late. He did not do as well as I would have liked. He cried for almost 2 hours and I finally gave in and picked him up and let him sit with me in the rocking chair and put him to sleep. He did his same wake up around 2am and continuous wake ups after that.
My Night looked like this.
These past few weeks he hasn't been napping by himself because his abuelita is in town and she wants to spend so much time with him. Unfortunately I think that this has been part of an issue because hes gotten used to being with someone when he sleeps. I don't want to deprive her of spending this time with him because she might not get to see him again for a long time.
Needless to say I am starting over on Monday with his day time routine and fingers crossed he gets better.
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