Sleep

I am happy to say that we have seen an improvement in sleep. Things haven't been perfectly consistent (Maren is a baby after all), but they are consistently better this week than they were last week.

We have implemented a number of changes, and we have been writing down when Maren is sleeping and when she wakes up so that we can see if there is any kind of pattern. Our biggest change has been to our sleeping configuration – Maren in the crib sidecarred next to the bed, and instead of me sleeping next to her, Jeff sleeps next to her. It does appear that moving the milk a few feet to the right has changed Maren's nighttime behavior, so that she is not asking for milk more than three times a night, and sometimes it has been only one or two. This is a major improvement over five or seven or even nine times a night in the previous two weeks.

The second big change is the introduction of earplugs. Maren stirs approximately every half hour when she is completing a sleep cycle. While she doesn't usually wake up, all that wiggling and noisemaking was waking me up. So I started wearing earplugs when we traded places in bed, because Jeff would be the one to notice when she was asking for milk, and wake me up. After a few nights, it became clear to Jeff that he would hear her through earplugs when she wanted to nurse, but that it would help him get back to sleep more quickly if he also was wearing earplugs (in no small part because I snore). So for the past several nights we have both been wearing earplugs, and it has been fine – it is not necessary for Maren to get to the point of crying before Jeff notices that she needs to nurse. So that has been a great change as well.

We are also keeping track of her naps, because all of the sleep books tell us that a nap of less than an hour doesn't really count, and that babies this age usually need three naps per day. Well, Maren's naps are typically twenty-eight minutes long, and she needs 3 to 4 naps per day. The length does vary somewhat, but we have been struck by how many of her naps are exactly 28 minutes long. So as one of our books states, Maren "hasn't read the books," and so is not aware of the fact that she is supposed to nap for at least an hour at the time.

We have implemented a 7 PM bedtime, not because it was convenient for us, but because Maren has insisted. There have been days when she has wanted to go to sleep even earlier than this. But the good news is that she is generally able to sleep in her crib by herself from 7 PM until we come to bed around 9:30 PM, so I have been able to use this time to get some things done (like this blog post!), and we even watched a movie together for the first time since Maren was born.

So all in all, things regarding sleep have improved substantially. I am hoping that we have more nights of one or two wake ups and fewer nights of three or more, but even if we consistently have three, I think I can manage it!