Silly Shakespeare Titles - Continued

I decided to throw everything I think about sleep out the window and make some BIG changes right at the time when Ava's sleep would be predicted to get even worse – the dreaded four-month-old sleep regression. Jonah hit this one hard. After a month of sleeping relatively well, when he hit four months old (at right: Jonah at 4.5 months), it all went (back) to crap, and remained crap for months and months, with small, teeny-tiny baby steps of improvement along the way.

With Ava, I figure it can't get much worse. So we're making changes. My new Plan has a goal: transition her to the crib in Jonah's room Memorial Day weekend, when my Mom will be here to help with childcare if no one gets any sleep due to the transition. (We can all take turns taking naps!) I think that if she's not right next to me, I'll be less inclined to feed her in the middle of the night to get her back to sleep, and if she's not getting fed, she'll be less likely to wake up subsequent nights. (That's my theory, anyway.) But to move her to Jonah's room, I wanted her sleep-trained, so I can dump her in the crib and him in the bed, and shut the door, and they'll both fall asleep on their own. But to sleep train her, I wanted her to be unswaddled, because I feel bad about sleep training her if she doesn't have her hands free to give her some comfort.

We're eight days into the Plan. We started last Wednesday by getting rid of her swaddle. I was going to do the one-arm-in method, but she got the one arm out several times the first night, so we've pretty much done it cold turkey. While at first she slept a tiny bit worse, she's now back to the two or three wake-ups she was doing while swaddled. We started sleep training last Friday, and it's going very well, especially if she's really tired and ready to go to sleep when we put her down. The past couple of nights, she's fallen asleep after only one or two visits to re-insert the pacifier. We have a week until Mom arrives and the big transition takes place, and in the meantime, I'm going to transfer some night-waking duties to Matt. Now we just have to get Jonah to agree to have her sleep in his room!

Of course, this week Jonah has been sick, so I'm even more tired than I was before, because now they're both waking up at night. I guess someday they'll move out, and then I can count on eight solid hours again....

To sleep, perchance, to dream.

Seems like all I want to do these days is talk about sleep. It's the most important topic of conversation in this family: who's getting it, who's not, and how much (if any). So indulge me as I continue the conversation (no one ever said that this blog would be devoid of narcissistic navel-gazing).

Back in March, I posted about how Ava could sleep. The girl got better and better, regularly sleeping for 6-8 hours a night. While we were away for Passover (and our first few days back), she slept through the night – down for the count around 8 or 9 PM, not up til 6:30 AM. Full stop. Contrast that with Jonah, who the night after we got home from Passover (when he was almost 6 months old), woke up six times (SIX!). And that with me starting a new job the next day. It was not a pretty first day of work.

But wait, there's more. The day after the day after we got back from Passover, my fabulous little sleeper became not so fabulous. She started regularly waking twice (or even three times) a night, every once in a while throwing a single 5 AM wake up into the mix. And strangely enough, it happened right when I went back to work. With Jonah, that transition coincided with improved sleep. Not so Ava. The inhabitants of our household spent most of April battling one illness or another. (Well, the human ones. The cat seemed unfazed.) I thought that when we all were finally well, she might settle back in. Wrong. Then she learned how to roll, and I thought, "Aha! She's been working on something developmental! Surely she'll go back to sleeping well now." Wrong, squared. In the meantime, I'm struggling to get enough sleep to recover from my hellish sore throat, snapping at everything that moves, and generally not appreciating the lack of zzz's.

So what did I do?

Oh wait…what was that?

Sounds like Jonah has prematurely awoken from his nap. Sigh.

To be continued…

You know I'm a fool for statistics.

Four month doctor visit today!



Weight: 14 lbs 1.5 oz (48th percentile)



Height: 26 in (91st percentile, and equal to Jonah's height at four months)



Head circumference: 42 cm (66th percentile)