The Sleep Issue

It's time to mom-up and I'm not excited about it.

Though the Monster's sleep pattern could be much worse, we (Nick, myself and our pediatrician) feel that the Monster is ready to start self-soothing. I've researched, read and than re-read the various methods of getting the babeh to sleep through the night and it came down to The Ferber Method and the Sleep Lady Shuffle. Why were we tied between two almost extremes, you ask? The newer version of the Ferber method is actually a lot gentler than before and, if we stick to it, Monster should be able to self-soothe and sleep better through the night. The "shuffle" is a sort of supervised crying (if it even comes down to crying) rather than crying-it-out, but it takes longer.

You may ask why we even had to think about it, but it really isn't a decision that should be taken lightly. We want it to work and in order to do so, we have to be able to stick with it.

We started the Shuffle last night. Or a variation of the shuffle at least.

Monster still enjoys his pacifier, so rather than quit it cold turkey we're going to ease him off. I'm not entirely sure how, but for now when he cries at night, he gets the pacifier and one of us stays with him until he falls asleep (but no picking him up). Eventually we will go without it, but I want to talk to the pediatrician first on a good way to do it.

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On another note, I start school tomorrow. Boo. I'm going to miss my little Monster, but I survived a night without him (albeit with a lot of tears) so I think I'll be ok tomorrow. I will update on our sleep progress as the weeks progress.

Vaccination Day

Boo.

Monster gets his 4 month boosters today. I hate that he has to get shots, especially shots that are mixed with so many different vaccines. When I really think about it, I wish I would have insisted that we delay, but then I hear about the pertussis epidemic in CA and I am very glad that I am vaccinating on a schedule. I am now planning on getting the Tdap vaccine combo to ensure that the little Monster doesn't get whooping cough from me... and I will probably force the hubs to do the same.

To add to the sadness, I think the Monster may be going through the 4 month old sleep regression. Normally, he goes to bed around 9, wakes sometime between 3 and 4, is back to sleep in 30 minutes, wakes around 5:30, comes in bed with me and will sleep no later than 8:30 (not always, but most of the time) and is then up for the day. Apparently that means he is sleeping through the night, who knew? I am not happy to only get a few hours of straight sleep every night, but it's doable and I am usually able to function the following day. However last night the Monster woke up six times. I'm trying to run off of three terrible hours of sleep. I really hope that this was just a weird night and not the actual regression because if it was, this can continue for weeks (or even months) and with school starting next week, I kind of need my sleep. There are few things that make me feel like a total failure, but bawling my eyes out while I rock the baby and beg him to go to sleep is certainly one of them.

So, today should be fun. I'm hoping that the Monster ends up being more sleepy than fussy today since I'm planning on visiting a friend and her newborn this afternoon, and I would prefer to keep the Monster with me and not dump him on Grandma. What horrible timing. Time for coffee.